


As Atton Will Ever Be

by UnrealRomance



Category: Star Wars Legends: Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords
Genre: But I also want things to be happy and fluffy, F/M, I have depression and I could make you weep blood, I'm not great at angst because I'm SO good at Angst, So who knows what the fuck is gonna happen, Warnings for anything angsty, if that doesn't make sense
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-14
Updated: 2019-07-13
Packaged: 2019-08-01 23:10:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 22
Words: 26,642
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16293677
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UnrealRomance/pseuds/UnrealRomance
Summary: Modern Girl dropped in Kotor. Atton Romance.Well. This is going to be. A ride.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Apparently my new pattern is updating Unwritten once a week alongside two other updates to whatever random-ass stories I've got the inspiration for that week. Lmao. Here's a new one for you.

"Ugh…" I groan and clutch at my head. "What…the…hell…"

It's not that I hurt, but I do. It's more of an ache, but that aside- everything feels so slow and wobbly like when I'm coming down off of high-grade meds. Like just after a surgery.

"Whoa now, no moving till you're able to tell me your name, age and occupation." A stranger's voice- but if I'm on some kind of high-grade drug, that usually means doctors, right?

But I always remember when I'm on drugs,  _why_  I'm on them. Even if I'm all fuzzy and my sense of time is fucked, I at least recall that I needed surgery or something. But I can't remember anything that might tell me what the hell is going on.

But name, age and occupation are normal doctor questions that I've heard before when they wanted to test my level of awareness.

"I don't know where I am," I say instead of answering them. Because to be honest I can't really remember right now.

"You're in the Peragus Mining Facility med bay," she says.

I giggle a little because…I know where that is and that isn't real. Is it? No, I could swear that's from…something. "What?"

"The pain medication  _must_  be wearing off by now... Do you remember how you got hurt?" she asks.

"I…can't…pain you can't give me medicine like people," I trip over my words, trying to explain. "I'm like a sponge. For drugs. I'm a drug sponge."

I try to blink open my eyes, but the light is too bright, so I just end up groaning and rolling over on whatever medical cot I'm on.

"Ah, that'd explain a few things…I'll just make a note of that in your chart. Be good to have a name to go with it, yeah?" Her voice is very soothing.

And since she thought it'd be funny to make a reference to…something Star Wars, I think? My drugged up brain thinks it'll be funny to use my Exile's or Revan's or one of my other protagonist's names from Star wars the old republic. But which one?

It's like my brain hit randomize and completely froze up while shuffling through all the options. "Uh…I don't remember yet."

"Alright, that's alright, no need to strain yourself." I feel a cool hand on my head, stroking my hair very softly. "You can go back to sleep for a while and when the drugs wear off, I've got some food and water for you, alright?"

I hum lazily and it takes…maybe hours to come to myself enough to be aware of my surroundings. It feels like both minutes and years.

The entire time, everything is distorted and kinda wobbly around the edges. It's like being underwater in summer. Warm, detached. Quiet because the noise is all off in the background where it can't bother you.

When feeling began returning to my limbs, I started to feel the effects of the drugs as I usually do after I've taken something like this. I crash hard, always. It's not difficult to see why people become addicts if the drug wearing off is more unbearable than any kind of pain.

It never hurts so much as it makes everything feel waterlogged and pinched. Like when you've been in the pool too long and sunburned at the same time. Your skin feels all at once too malleable, squishy and moist and also taut, dry and itchy.

I hate this feeling, and I've only been feeling it for the past two minutes. Or two hours. I have no fucking idea.

All I know is that the next time I open my eyes, everything is…loud.

There's alarms going off and that lady from before- I  _think_ it's the same lady -is trying to pull me out of bed. She's saying something but the alarms and the screaming are just too much for my brain to process all at once on top of her voice.

I'm yanked and coaxed and shouted at until I'm huddled in a little ball in a corner without having any real memory of getting there. It was like freeze frame moments in which I could hear and feel and see- then everything would go dark, then it'd start again, over and over.

"Are they contained?" A man's voice…somewhere nearby.

I've got my face buried in my knees and I'm not looking up, fuck all this noise and light and movement!

"They finally shut them down, but there are three miners that need to be in the tanks, we have to move fast. Hey, sweetheart, think you can get up?" That last part was directed toward me, I think. The voice comes closer. "How are you feeling? Still a little drugged?"

I grumble an assent and start to unfold my body, because I think this means I can go back to bed and the noise is going to stop, right?

"That's another damn detonation that went off because of a droid, I know that maintenance officer had better have a damn good explanation for this."

"What about that guy they put in lockdown? Could he be involved in all this?"

"He's been in a cell for the past day and a half, so I doubt it."

I wobble on my feet to the stretcher I'd been sleeping on before, the nice doctor lady escorting me the whole way. I can't really make sense of what's going on, but I think…they're talking about Atton?

"Are they talking about…Atton?" I ask the lady as I curl up under the covers.

She pauses for a moment. "You know that man, sweetheart?"

"Kinda," I yawn. "He's just a guy in the game."

"Game? I'm sorry honey, I don't know what you-" she gets cut off by another man who walks over to talk to me.

"What do you know about that man?" he asks.

"H's…jus' Atton," I mumble sleepily. "J's let him out, he prob'ly didn't know the rules."

And then I'm asleep once more. And I have no idea how much time passes before I wake up again.


	2. Chapter 2

This isn't happening to me.

"They said you knew me, and vouched for me, so…uh… I don't remember where we might've met…but…thanks?" Atton Rand is in the med bay thanking me for getting him out of lock-up.

On Peragus.

Where I am.

Where I thought I was dreaming or hallucinating. Till now. When the drugs have worn off and everything is super clear.

' _Oh my god you're just staring at him blankly,_ _ **say something**_ _._ '

"Pazaak," I blurt. And then flush when I realize that made no sense. "We played…Pazaak. Once." It's all I could fucking think of.

"They mentioned you said something about a 'game', I figured that might've been it." He's smiling a little. "Still don't remember you, though, sorry about that."

"You were kinda drunk, no worries," I reply hastily.

His smile is bigger now and I have no idea why, what did I say, am I being amusing? What the fuck.

"So how did you end up here?" he asks. "I was on my way through for some fuel when I got grabbed, but nobody here knows who you are or how you got onto that ship they recovered."

I cough to clear my throat and give myself a second to process the fact that I was apparently on the EBON FUCKING HAWK before coming to Peragus and reply: "I was a stowaway."

Okay, he's grinning now, what the fuck did I say.

"So where are you from, originally?" he asks. Grin muting like he's trying to swallow it.

Can't just fucking say 'Earth'!

"Everywhere," I evade. Though it's kinda true. I did move around a lot as a kid, I don't really have one point of origin or anything. Where I was born…well, I didn't really go back to that specific town afterwards so it's not like it counts.

' _Why do I have to justify this, he's as much a liar as I am, it's fine._ ' God I feel such relief at that realization. Does that make me a bad person? Who cares.

"Well, it's not like I haven't been everywhere," he concedes. But he's still looking at me, all curious for some reason. "Still curious as to where we met, though."

"Nar Shaddaa, I think." I respond. "All dingy places with too much tacky gross stuff on their tables start to look the same after a while, though, so I could be wrong." It's getting easier now. "We barely met for like, any time at all, it's really not a big deal."

"Right…you just happened to recognize me and remember my name and vouched for me to people who were holding me in a cell," he says. "After one Pazaak game in which we apparently barely spoke. That's not strange or anything."

"I've been drugged for days, I didn't know what I was saying- what did I say?" It occurs to me I could've totally embarrassed myself.

"What do you  _think_  you said?" He grins again though this time I  _know_  it's because he's fucking with me.

So I squint and decide to fuck with him back. "That you kiss like a Rancor trying to suck marrow?"

But instead of being surprised or insulted like I'd wanted…. "I knew it!… _hey_!" Okay so he's a little offended, but apparently I'd given him the impression that we…did something…and now I just confirmed a suspicion I didn't intend to give him.

Well this is  _wonderful_. I was gonna say syke but uh…I'm thinking he wouldn't believe that at this point.

So I improvise. "Knew what? Basically every game of drunken Pazaak ends in a fight or a round of Nar Shaddaa rules or  _something_." I shrug. "Didn't think that would be a revelation."

"Not  _every_  one…" he says and then crosses his arms. "Well I mean…I haven't been back in a while. To Nar Shaddaa, I mean."

We're having an entire conversation based on a line of bullshit, I can't even handle this.

"Can we just pretend we haven't met in a bar in a drunken encounter that ended in you winning a kiss off me in Pazaak and like, interact like normal people?" I ask.

"I won it off you?" he asks, surprised. "I don't…I don't usually bet for that sorta thing."

"You didn't-" I wave one of my hands. "Just, can we drop it? And move on? Please, I'm begging you."

"What, are you embarrassed?" he asks with a kind of shit-eating grin. "I thought this happened all the time?"

"Not to  _me_ , you ass, I meant in  _general_ ," I say. And then I lash out with my foot to kick him because that's what I do when someone's being a cheeky jackass back in my universe, but I forgot who I was dealing with and he. Caught. My. Foot.

He looked surprised about it, too.

We just kinda, stare at each other for a second, and then I can't take it anymore. I just start laughing. "What was that!?"

"Hey you're the one who kicked me!" he says while dropping my foot.

"I wasn't expecting you to have ninja-reflexes!" I snort, retracting my foot and hiding my face in my knees. "Jesus…"

"Cheeses? Is this how you swear?" he asks.

I flip him off. "Jesus, is a religious figure in a religion you've probably never heard of. I can curse just  _fine_ , thank you."

"Ohhh," he says. "So you were being heretical. Yeah okay, maybe that's fine. I was just wondering how a girl like you even survives on Nar Shaddaa, that's all."

"A girl like  _what_ , exactly?" I lift my head just to give him the stink-eye.

"Hey calm down," he says, putting his hands up in surrender. "I just meant you seem a lot nicer than most girls on Nar Shaddaa. We talked for like five minutes before you tried to do me bodily harm, so."

"Women attempting to rack you is a common experience, then?" I taunt. "I can see that."

"Well I came in here to thank you and all I've gotten is abuse, so I guess you really are from Nar Shaddaa," he says. Totally smarmy about it, too. "That's all I wanted to know, thanks. I'll be eating with the miners, if you need me."

And then he moves away from the wall he'd been leaning on and out the door with a little salute in the air with two fingers as he goes through the opening.

This is when a few things occur to me.

One: Everyone is still alive and Atton is here. Meaning it's anywhere from one to three days before everything goes to hell.

Two: The only reason Atton survived was  _because_  he was locked up and he is now…free.

And Three: The Jedi Exile is probably still unconscious and HK is going to administer a fatal dose of sedatives to the other miners in their tubes to keep them out of commission, sometime soon.

Four: I am in the med-bay where this happens.

"Fuck, I'm goin' back to sleep."

Because why deal with reality when you can escape it, right?

And then I remember what it looked like when Atton was smiling at me and that plan goes right out the window cause even if this  _is_  a dream, there's no way in hell I'm leaving him to die here.

So I throw off the covers and sigh. "Or I could find HK, that works too."


	3. Chapter 3

"That was…easier than I thought it'd be," I say. Standing over the disabled chassis of the HK-50 unit that started it all on Peragus.

All I really had to do was talk to that mechanic guy about how to shut off a droid without having to like, destroy it- and after all the malfunctioning droids happening lately, he didn't really question why I wanted to know.

It differs from model to model, but there's always some kind of off-switch or failsafe. After the mechanic told me that he'd already run a diagnostic on HK and knew what it was, all I had to do was ask out of curiosity and he gave it to me.

It wasn't a button, or a phrase or anything like that. That'd be way too easy.

No instead there was a single conduit in his lower Chassis- right around the mid-point of his metal 'spine' where you could ram a vibroknife to cut off power and disable him for a short time.

It  _has_  to be a Vibroknife, though. Using a regular knife wouldn't work because it doesn't have the frequency-jamming side-effect that Vibroknives have and using a gun to shoot that spot wouldn't work because most Droid Chassis can deflect or withstand blaster fire- you'd have to get super close and shoot multiple times.

After the entire explanation, my head spun a bit, I'll be honest. I'm a words-and-pictures gal, not a tech gal.

But I eventually managed to sneak a Vibroknife out of lock up and corner HK while he was making rounds about the place- somewhere the cameras couldn't see and I know because I  _checked_ -

Wow, I feel…super stealthy right now.

Oh! I have to hurry. This won't keep HK disabled for long.

Crouching down and using my fingernails, I pry open a small panel at the back of HK's 'head' case and pull out the chips I find there. Some are for motor controls, some control his personality- a few are probably his assassin protocols…I just take the whole lot of 'em. To be safe.

Then I pocket the chips and pull out the  _one_  that I swiped from the mechanic's workbench. He told me all about it and what it does and how it works, so I just…slip it into the behavior port. Without the motor control chip, HK won't be able to move- but he'll have his behavior modified- so when someone finds him and takes him to the mechanic- they'll give him his movement back but he'll be a real protocol droid.

No assassination.

I hope.

The behavior port is the only one I actually knew about- so I keep that chip separate from the others, intending to destroy it when I can.

And now for a similarly difficult task…

I creep down hallways, timing my movements so that the cameras don't catch me, with my stolen Vibroknife tucked neatly away in a belt holster under the jacket that I was given from the lost and found. Under that, I'm wearing a kind of a jumpsuit that the miners wear under all their clothes to protect their skin from burns both fiery and acidic.

I have to appear somewhere, and I know where I should do so- right where I disappeared.

There's a bench along one of the walls where the camera only sees half of the seat. I made a show of sitting there and moving around until I was in the blind spot so that anyone looking would just think I was squished up on the end of the seat.

Which wouldn't help me if someone walked by, saw I wasn't there and told someone but...why would they? They'd have to go asking around about my whereabouts at a certain time and I made sure I wasn't seen by anyone along with not being seen by the cameras.

It's after lights-out, so to speak, but not quite late enough that anyone would be suspicious of me moving around. I could just tell them I was restless and having insomnia issues and it'd probably be all she wrote on the matter.

Or at least that's what I think, until I nearly get back to the seat and the door on the other side of the hallway opens and  _Atton_  walks through. Looking shady and passing through the door at the exact time the camera is pointed away from him.

So there's a moment. When we look at each other, and between each other to the cameras. And we both  _know_  that we're up to no good, here. But neither of us knows what the other is doing.

All we know is those cameras are still sweeping back and forth down the halls and we have to move. So we do. And there is a very small area in which we can pass by each other and still stay out of sight of the cameras.

So as we approach each other, we both turn sideways and try not to smack into each other- turning to walk backwards so we can see each other till we reach the opposite ends- ending up right underneath our respective cameras.

And then we both turn and walk away and I find my bench.

I've never been a mechanic, but my little brother and I used to do a lot with electronics. Little things. Like making our own toy cars with parts from other toy cars. It's a lot harder than it seems. He was always better at it than I was.

Still, I at least know the basics of taking things apart and putting them back together. So this actually went rather smoothly.

Now, I've just gotta figure out what the hell Atton was doing. And since he was going the same direction  _I_  was…

I sigh and reach down to check my pockets, for something to fiddle with while I lie down on the bench- trying to look like I've been here the whole ti-

Where's the behavior chip.

You must be  _fucking_  kidding.

_Atton_.


	4. Chapter 4

I manage to keep my cool until I can corner Atton away from anyone, but only just barely.

He's avoiding me, because he knows I know he took my chip. I dunno if he thinks I could be dangerous, but he seems to be operating under the assumption that I  _am_. Using polite conventions and groups to avoid me. But I finally just got fed up and waited till he was only with two other people and-

"Agh- let go!" He struggles to keep his feet as I drag him down the hallway away from the two men staring after us.

"Oh no, we are having  _a talk_  and if you don't shut up and walk, I  _will_  be shouting loudly enough for everyone to hear exactly what I'm angry about." It's a gamble, but me, a well-meaning girl trying to dismantle the droids because I was afraid- vs a man stealing something from me and possibly also the station? I'd get in less trouble, no contest.

"Fine!" He straightens up and walks, but he shrugs off my hand and dusts off his jacket kinda angrily.

I just have to remember who I'm dealing with here. He's dangerous. I like that about him, but when it's aimed at me…it's less attractive and more terrifying.

So once we're a sufficient distance down the hall, I turn and give him a look, then glance at the cameras on the wall. "You don't want this talk to be public, right?"

He glances and then back at me. "Not sure I even wanna have this talk."

"If you wanna survive what's coming, you do." I say so softly I hope the microphones around can't pick it up.

His eyes narrow. "Threat?" he turns his back to the camera and mouths it at me, so he's definitely as clever as I remember.

"Alliance," I reply. Standing right before him and just mouthing the words. "I can explain everything. Elsewhere."

He thinks about it for a minute, then nods and turns, waits for me to get next to him and then slings an arm around my waist. "Be better if this looked like a lover's spat."

"That was kinda my intention in pulling you away by your lapels like that," I reply. Trying to control my reaction. He's Atton, but he's still kind of a stranger. A stranger who is touching me. Usually my body would react before my brain could and he'd be on the floor but I know him just enough to forestall that reaction, I guess. "But maybe next time warn me? I almost racked you for real this time."

A breath of laughter is my only answer.

And then we're stepping into a closet, because that makes sense. Couple making up in a closet. Nothing suspicious here.

I step away from him and further into the closet so I can turn and face him. "You sure there are no listening devices or cameras in here?"

He shrugs. "It's a maintenance closet. They don't put cameras in here unless there's something valuable worth stealing. Everything in here is junk, easily replaceable."

I nod. "Okay first of all, that chip you stole-"

"Hey, on Nar Shaddaa it's finders keepers and thieves that don't get caught get to keep their catch."

"Yeah but you  _did_  get caught. I couldn't go back for you last night because I didn't wanna risk being seen. That's not the problem, here, though. Keep the chip, I don't care. But I thought I should warn you what's on it." If I tell him what that Chip is, he just might destroy it himself. He hates droids. Especially the murder-y types.

His eyes narrow again and he stares at me for a moment. "What's on it, then?"

"Assassin. Droid. Personality." I reply. "Not the precise types who work for a master. An  _independent_  Droid who's personality compels it to cause as much death and destruction as possible. And it was disguised as a protocol droid. You might've met him, actually." I say, all while staring him right in the eyes. "He's the one who's been making the droids malfunction. He wants the Jedi."

"'he'?" his head tilts and his eyebrow goes up. "You know droids don't have genders."

"Does it matter?" I reply in deadpan. "He was an  _assassin-_ "

"Yeah, one that you disabled," he says. "So it's not really a threat anymore, is it?"

"I'm not  _sure_ , Atton." I snap. "If you don't wipe that personality and put in a new one before it finds a new host- maybe that assassin droid gets installed into an even more inconspicuous chassis and it comes for you, thinking you have its old body. Maybe it just wreaks a lot of havoc. You wanna be responsible for that?"

He shrugs and affects a nonchalant facade. "Maybe I don't care."

"Maybe I do. And maybe I'm willing to trade an assassin droid weapon software chip to get it back so I can wipe it or throw it in the incinerator. If you want to keep it, fine. But what I can give you is a lot more valuable. You lifted from the wrong pocket."

He inhales long and slow, thinking about it, eyes darting everywhere but me. Then-

"Fine. A fair trade's better than being on your bad side," he says.

"What makes you so sure you couldn't handle me?" I ask. "Just cause I've been to Nar Shaddaa before and survived doesn't mean anything."

"No, but you disabling and then extracting the chips out of an  _assassin_ droid does." He says. "If what you say is true, you're more dangerous than you look. If it's not, then erring on the side of caution loses me nothing. So. Trade."

He holds out the chip on the palm of his hand and I dig in my pocket for the chip I want. They're all kinda differently shaped. Square with a little peg- but the peg's in different places. I did my research last night with the manuals in the repair shop. I'd secreted them away into the med-bay a while ago. Figured they'd come in handy.

The one with the peg in the middle on the left side- that one.

I pluck it out and hold it up in a clenched fist. "You try to cheat me and give me something you know isn't that droid personality chip and I won't tell you how to survive what's coming." I say. "And it's more than that droid."

"You said it was independent," he says. Holding out the chip. "And it's the real thing. Where would I have gotten a counterfeit? From that technician you hang around so much? Please."

"The droid  _is_  independent but it has other droid friends. Who are  _also_  independent assassin droids. And there's other people interested in that Jedi." I take the chip as I open my fist and he plucks the other from my palm with his free hand.

Then we both have what we need and I put the chips back in my pocket. Then feel around and do a count.

And I cross my arms and hold out my hand. "I've caught you in the act this time. Give them back."

He sighs and rolls his eyes, putting the two chips he stole from my pocket back in my hand. "You pay too much attention to steal from. I'll remember that, I promise." He sounds more irritated than resigned but whatever.

"Sith." I say.

He actually goes still and stares at me and I realize that might've sounded like I was identifying him.

"A Darth, is coming." I say as calmly as I can. "Darth Sion. Lord of Pain. He wants that Jedi. And we need to get off this station with that Jedi as quickly as possible."

"We? With the what?" he laughs a little. Snarkily. "Who do you even think I am? I'm not a republic agent or a do-gooder or a Jedi. Why should I care?"

This is something he does. I just need to give him a  _reason_  and he'll jump on it. I remember that.

"If this station gets blown to hell, what happens?" I ask. Narrowing my eyes at him. "Fuel source. Gone. Fuel prices. Go up. Hutts and other slumlords get a further stranglehold on the galaxy. Less freedom for people like you and me. Plus, that Jedi is the only defense we  _have_  against the Sith. You want people who kill non-force users just because they can, ruling the galaxy? No? Then we need to get that Jedi somewhere safe where they can recuperate. We don't have to do more than that."

"Or we hand the Jedi over to the Exchange and make a big payday," he says.

"And then what, Atton?" I ask. "The Jedi might be assholes in their own way, but they don't casually murder tens of thousands of people on a whim. Passively allow murder to happen, yes. Commit it on the scale the Sith do? No. So call me whatever you like, a do-gooder or whatever- but I'd rather useless Jedi hanging around the Galaxy than actively murderous Sith Lords."

He sighs through his nose, looking frustrated. "Say you're right. How would we even pull it off?"

"With the right kind of help," I reply.


	5. Chapter 5

"No, you're crazy!" the nurse is panicking, her hands doing a dance in the air with her anxiety. Like Jazz hands but more frantic.

"Elise,  _listen_ ," I hiss. Pulling her close by her shoulders. "We are all going to  _die_  if we don't get that Jedi away from here. If we don't get him to the Republic or whatever's left of the Jedi order,  _he'll_  die, too. Those Sith are coming for him."

She flicks my hands off her shoulders and steps back. "No! You don't have any proof, all you can give me is a bunch of fearmongering- I'm not falling for that, I'm not-"

"How are you with computers?" I ask, fishing the behavior chip out of my pocket and offering it to her. "This is proof that there was an assassin droid on this station that I neutralized. That's why the droids haven't gone any more haywire and why they're actually getting better."

She stares at the chip in my hand for many moments but eventually gives in and snatches it from my grasp to insert it into the computer terminal so she can analyze it.

Atton is leaning on the wall nearby, just outside the door to watch the hallway. He makes eye contact briefly, then returns to keeping watch.

A miniature projection of HK-50 pops up in holographic clarity over the console. And Elise says, "run all subroutines."

We are treated to a little light show of HK running through all his protocol subroutines, one by one.

Elise huffs and glances back at me, as if to say 'I knew you were full of shit'.

But I lift both brows and gesture at the hologram. "Wait for it. He's an infiltrator. He's got lots of subroutines."

Pretty soon, she sees what I mean. There are medical subroutines, and not of the kind a protocol droid would have in any situation. There's the recitation of drugs and their effects on organic bodies-and it's all very poisonous, toxic and…cheerfully gruesome, in its detail.

"...this solution is quite handy for liquefying the intestines of organics through consumption!" The Hologram declares.

I have no idea why but HK-47 was always really charming and funny and I loved him to bits but…HK-50 needs to get smacked upside the head.

…I guess I kinda already did that.

She looks sick by the time the little hologram pulls a gun off its back and reacts like it's being attacked.

Slamming her hand down on a button on the console, she breathes heavily and there are tears in her eyes. "That was terrible. Everything it said was terrible. It's used all of those things, hasn't it? Did it poison us?"

"No, it didn't get the chance-" I am cut off when she throws her arms around me. "Uh. I mean. It would've killed me too." I get so flustered when people show me affection, especially strangers or just-met-acquaintances. "No need to thank me or whatever. Can we save everyone's lives now?"

She pulls away and dabs at her eyes, collecting herself. "Yes, I- Yes. I will help you, do that."

That was…miraculously easy. It almost seems too easy. Like the evidence shouldn't have been enough.

But that's just the me who's played games her whole life confused at why the NPC isn't stubbornly demanding a favor even though I've proven to her that doing this for me is in everyone's best interest.

People do that, sure, but I guess this isn't one of those times. Weird. Good, but weird. To be in the Star Wars universe and encounter someone who doesn't bug me to retrieve a family heirloom or kill someone for them.

"Okay. Well. Atton and I are gonna get access to the Ebon Hawk and we'll signal you when it's time to use this," I hand her a spike that Atton programmed with an emergency alert that would get everyone to evacuate the station immediately. I have no idea how it works. "It'll get everyone out, but most importantly it'll give you an excuse to wake up the miners and put the Jedi on a gurney. We'll take him from there as you transport the miners to the escape shuttle- and we'll all be out of here and nobody will have to die."

I reach out and take the chip out of the console, as it had ejected when she'd hit the stop button. "If they want to come back, for any reason- you can tell them what happened. In fact, when you get to Citadel Station, tell the commander there that you need to speak with a Republic officer, named 'Carth Onasi' and mention that the assassin was an HK model."

She's nodding along very quickly and pockets the spike.

"Just wait for our signal, okay?" I hand her a small chip that Atton gave me. It goes to a Holocommunicator and has our frequency on it. Well. Has  _his_  frequency on it. I don't have a Holocomm, obviously. "We'll be in touch as soon as we've got the ship access."

I leave the med-center with Atton, aware that this next part is probably gonna be the really difficult bit.

And I leave the engineering section not ten minutes later, utterly confused by how easy it was to steal the Vocabulator I needed to get to the Ebon Hawk.

It even had the right code saved on it for playback because the Engineer guy was still testing it.

What even is today?

"How did I even do that?" I ask, completely confused. "I expected both parts of this plan to be more difficult than this."

We're sitting on the Hawk, waiting on Elise to activate the alarms.

Atton is running through some kind of flight check of the ship. "You know it's still possible she could try to screw us over, right? Or that the Engineer might come looking for his little gadget? Don't jinx us."

"I wasn't saying it couldn't get  _harder_ , just that the parts I thought would be difficult, weren't. Aren't people usually a lot more obstinate than that?"

He glances aside at me in the copilot seat and shrugs. "On Nar Shaddaa, sure. But this is pretty far removed from Nar Shaddaa. People here are a lot easier."

I know he's saying they're easier to manipulate, or use or whatever. But people being 'easier', period, is music to my ears. I always have such a hard time relating and communicating to people, that…well. This is a relief, anyway.

And that's the point when the alarms start sounding and it's go-time.

Atton observes the flashing lights through the viewscreen and a wry grin twitches across his face for a moment. "Time to go."


	6. Chapter 6

I knew I'd forgotten something. Or, at least, I forgot to plan for something.

"Curious," Kreia surveys the cockpit as Atton and I sit at the controls. "Such initiative. Taken for someone you do not even know."

Since she hasn't faced Sion, she hasn't lost a hand, which means she isn't weakened. She could kill us, right now. And she wouldn't even have to explain it to the Exile, she could just throw us both out the airlock after we were corpses.

I didn't think she'd wake up till later. More the fool, I.

Now I'm scrambling for something to think about and the answer presents itself pretty immediately.

I'm not even remotely accomplished at being subtle and it'll be apparent before long to everyone that I've got an Atton-bias, so…I just focus on Atton. I fill my head with thoughts about whether he'll stay or go when we get where we're going. About whether or not he likes me, and lastly about if that would even matter, in the end.

She doesn't seem to have dug into my head yet, I don't think, so maybe it's working.

Or she did and then erased my memory. Whatever. This isn't making me paranoid and twitchy at all.

"Yeah well, we're just the type to do that, apparently," Atton mutters to himself. "Where are we taking the Jedi and Grandma Creepy-robes?"

"The Jedi needs to go to Dantooine. If there's any Jedi left, they'll be there or…fuck if I know. It's the only well-known place I can think of where Jedi might go to connect." It's not, actually- but explaining that would likely get me nowhere. "Failing that, we could head to any Republic base around here and probably get in contact with someone who'd be willing to protect him."

"And then what?" he says. "We keep following the Jedi around or can we just…drop him off?"

"That Jedi is the last hope of your galaxy not to fall to ruin," Kreia scoffs. "Leaving him to someone else's care is folly. You have encountered him for a reason, that reason could well be that you are the only ones who can keep him alive."

"Not the only ones, it's never that simple," I remark, off-hand. "And it's also likely we're just needed for one step of the journey, after which the universe will kill us off this weird-ass game show."

I hear a choked noise and glance over to see Atton coughing into his fist.

"You alright, Atton?" What did he do, swallow his tongue?

He clears his throat and shrugs. "Fine, fine. But eh…we're gonna need to land somewhere and refuel. This tank is barely half-full."

"What, really?" I groan and slump in my seat. "I guess we have to stop. Just please say anywhere but-"

"Telos is nearby," he says.

I groan louder and slump harder. "Why is this my life."

"What, are you wanted on Telos citadel station or something?" Atton asks. Glib and a little distracted as he puts in the coordinates. Or at least, that's what I assume he's doing, anyway.

"No, I just hate being on space stations," I grumble.

Not the truth, but also not a lie. A ship is one thing- there's only one viewport and I could ignore it or walk away from it- but space stations in star wars tend to be…really open. Like, 'turn around and you'll see the vastness of open, empty space yawning out before you' open.

But I also wanted to go a little more off-script than this.

Hopefully not destroying Peragus means we don't get detained?

"Should start on repairs with T3, anyway." I am so glad I remembered to detour to that storage room on our way out and pick him up. My voice didn't activate him, but I was able to push him onto the ship- his little roll-y feet were helpful for that. Now I just have to get him working. "Help me?"

Atton sighs, "more droids, great."

"I shall watch over the Jedi," Kreia announces and turns, leaving the room. "Do try not to blow up the ship before we reach our destination."

Atton makes a face and I snort a little. I try to hide it by covering my mouth but I think I just made it more obvious I was trying really hard not to laugh.

"Well," Atton takes his hands off the controls. "This  _is_  on Auto-pilot, so I guess I can spare the couple of hours before we get to Telos. But we're putting a restraining bolt on that thing or something."

"No restraining bolts," I instantly deny. "T3 isn't a combat model. The worst he could really do is-"

"Shut off the ventilation, open the cargo and docking bay doors, close us off in the dormitories till we starve to death…" he lists off one thing after another and trails off when he sees me watching him. "What? He could!"

I try not to laugh, but it's  _hard_. "In theory, sure. But without a saboteur, he'd have to hate us a whole lot. So maybe making friends with the droids is the best way to avoid those eventualities."

"Droids don't 'make friends'-" he pauses. "Did you say droids? As in plural? Please tell me that was a slip of the tongue."

"Uh…" How the hell do I explain HK to Atton, when I told him the HK series is a bunch of Assassin droids? "We should probably talk about that."

"Ughhh," he slumps in his seat. "Just lemme throw 'em into a sun or something. Why do we even need 'em?"

"Well,  _you_ might not…" I trail off and I can feel the dread creeping in. I know I'm not going to survive this if I don't have an edge. "But one is a combat model who can protect me and the other can do all the slicing and repairing that I don't know how to do yet."

"Like I can't protect you?" I think he took that as an insult, but I'm not sure if he's being serious. "And I am capable of slicing and repairing, too, you know."

"I wouldn't ask you to do that, Atton." I'm blushing, I can't believe it takes so little to make me turn bright red. Running my fingers through my hair, I take note that it's starting to get a little oily. I'm going to need a shower soon. "And besides. You won't always be with me, 24/7…but a Droid can be."

"Yeah, I guess," he mutters. "Just don't ask me to trust 'em."

"Wouldn't dream of it, Atton." I roll my eyes.


	7. Chapter 7

So, we've been detained.

"Why do I get thrown in prison everywhere I go?" Atton says grumpily in the cell next to mine.

"Because you're always doing shady things?" I ask with a sideways glance.

"Not always!" He huffs and denies.

"Name a thing you've done lately that isn't shady," I reply.

"Uhhh, I helped  _you_  evacuate a whole space station before it could be attacked by Sith?" He says.

"Dude, that was super shady," I reply. "Nobody knows who we are or why we sent up the alarm. It could be a cleverly constructed plan to steal the Jedi for all anyone can tell."

He settles on the floor with his legs crossed tightly to keep them away from the sides of the force cage. "Yeah well, it wasn't. And if it was,  _I_  didn't know about it."

"Both of you be quiet," Kreia hisses. "Someone approaches."

It wouldn't be an understatement to say that Atton  _jumps_  to his feet.

An altogether smooth motion that belies his secret skillset. This guy thinks talking like a sleaze and being sarcastic will hide how good he is at things, but if you're paying attention, it really does not.

I guess the fact that he remains hidden for so long just means that nobody was really paying attention. Which is just another testament to his skill, really. Disappearing completely while being perfectly visible is kind of an art.

Course that  _could_  just be my Atton-bias talking…

"Well, well…" the assassin enters the room a bit differently than in-game. "What do we have here?"

"We answered all your questions," Atton says. He's already suspicious and got his dander up. "We've done nothing wrong. The least you could do is quit bothering us." I don't know if he knows this guy isn't a cop yet, but he definitely suspects he isn't, already.

The assassin chuckles and it chills my spine.

"Oh they're almost done processing the information you've given them. You'd be released soon if you weren't about to die," he says.

Why do evil people always gotta tell you what they're doing first? I mean I know it's because they love to hear themselves talk and blah blah blah but it makes no logical sense why he couldn't do it  _after_  we'd already been killed.

He walks over toward the station on the wall with the terminal where he could open our cells.

Atton speaks as the assassin gets close. "I can guess how you'll do it, too. All you'd have to do is make it look like a malfunction in the cell's force shields and you could fry us no problem. How cliche. Guess you don't think you could win in a fight against us." He sounds so _annoying_ , it's hilarious.

"I have no problem beating seasoned veteran mercenaries when we butt heads out in the real world," the false officer turns to say and grin. "But you?  _You_  aren't even a challenge."

"And you're assuming this from what, two seconds in our presence?" I ask. "We played nice with the authorities to make things easier on ourselves, not because we didn't have other options."

"Yeah, you don't know anything about us," Atton goads. "I'll take you on myself if you're so ready for a challenge."

Wait, why is he here? The Jedi Exile was taken to the infirmary.

…we didn't tell anyone who the Jedi was. Just that we escaped, with a Jedi, two non-jedi and two droids.

Kreia just looks like a weak old woman. Atton or I could be the Jedi for all he knows. Could I use that? No. I'd have to actually be able to use the force. Wouldn't I?

If he opens that cage, Atton and Kreia will probably attack but I have no fight skills. What could I do…

"Oh? All by yourself?" the mercenary sneers and steps up close to the force cage. "Without any weapons? It might be entertaining just to watch you flail at me. For a second or two."

"Maybe he can't defeat you, but  _I_  certainly can," I say. In the most calm, even-toned way I possibly can. "I would rather not be forced to harm you."

His eyes immediately snap to me.

So do Atton's.

"So you're the one, are you?" He says. "Supposed to bring you in alive, you know. But I could be forced to cart in your corpse. Sure I'd get paid either way."

"No, you wouldn't." I reply. Still calm. "The man who put the bounty on Jedi wants them alive. If you bring him a dead Jedi, what use will it be to him? Course this could be about more than just money for you." I hum. "Tell you what. Let me out of this cage and you'll see just what I'm capable of."

Atton's eyes are demanding to know what the hell I'm doing.

"You don't even have your  _lightsaber_ ," Atton says. Very meaningfully telling me that I have no weapons without blowing my ruse. "Let  _me_  handle this."

"While I'm confident you  _could_ , I don't want you to get hurt on my account," I say and turn my attention to the assassin. "Besides… I can handle him."

The assassin grins sharply and walks over to the control panel by the wall and Atton turns to face me a little more directly. Mouthing at me. 'What are you doing?'

'Have a plan,' I mouth back. 'Just be ready.'

His brow furrows but he turns back to watch the guy turn off my forcefield.

I also watch, very closely. Atton could've goaded him into a fight but…I want this to end much more tidily and more in my favor.

I see the button he pushes and that it's in a row of other buttons. All I'd have to do to open Atton and Kreia's force cage's would be to hit the controls for both of them. But that'll be a last resort.

The assassin turns to grin toothily at me as he hits the button and my force cage deactivates. "Time for the fun part."


	8. Chapter 8

"When you told me to 'be ready', I didn't think you meant to watch you jump around the room and almost die." Atton is very helpfully applying some Kolto to my poor bruised face. He's also speaking very low because they could be monitoring us.

"I just needed you as a last resort," I mutter back and flinch when the Kolto gets into an open split in my cheek. "I didn't want to have to do what I was thinking if I didn't have to. And it worked out. Now stop talking about it. They're probably recording us."

He sighs. And it's very distracting because he's like, right in my face right now. I can  _feel_  him exhale on my skin and that isn't helping me not to tense up. Which just makes the Kolto application that much more painful.

His lips tip up in a sorta smile for a second before he steps away and sits on the bed next to mine. "Protection, huh?"

I huff and lie back on the very narrow bed. "Like you had better ideas."

Fighting the assassin never would've ended well. So I evaded him instead. He smacked the walls, the force cages- everything but me until he got fed up, threw away his sword and came at me with his fists.

He landed a few hits then, to my face and my body- but by that time the other officers showed up and I was curled into a ball at his feet.

I knew what that would look like. Which is why I let him hit me. Not enough to really hurt me, just enough he wouldn't get frustrated and take out his blaster to finish me off- and enough to show up on my face so that when the officers came in, they'd see me-

A small, soft, big-eyed woman who's just been beaten up by the angry-looking and very large man towering over me.

The TSF shot him when he refused to disarm (this was after he'd drawn his blaster and before he could shoot me with it) and they realized he wasn't the guy he was supposed to be. On the floor, I was well away from the shots.

But I still made a show of being hysterical and then demanding compensation for my pain and suffering by having Lieutenant Grenn put us under 'protection' instead of house arrest.

I suspected the two things were different- they are where I'm from. And I was right. We still can't leave, but we have access to the extra-net- monitored -and we're able to call anyone we want-

Also monitored.

Plus, since we're not technically prisoners, we can order take-out and movies on the holoprojector…thing.

I still don't know how that thing works.

"No, I was pretty set on just… you know," he shrugs and doesn't finish. He doesn't really have to. "You're a lot scrappier and kinda more evil than you look."

I blush. I can't help it. I'm flattered. I know 'evil' isn't something to aspire to, but he basically just told me I'm really kickass in his own way. He used the wrong words. I should be offended.

I really am not, though.

"Hush, both of you," Kreia stands from her meditation. "The Jedi has awoken. I can feel him."

"Oh great, so we've got  _two_  Jedi painting targets on our backs?" Atton laments.

"She's not a Jedi," I correct. "She might not even be Sith, but she's definitely not a Jedi."

"Indeed," Kreia inclines her head. "The Jedi will be confused when he comes around fully, there should be someone to explain."

"Eh, I'll go," I sit up on the bed and stop when I feel a hand on my shoulder.

Atton is staring at me from beside me, hand very lightly resting there. "You're still all bruised up."

"And I'll be going to an  _infirmary_ ," I reply. A little…confused as to why he cares.

I mean Atton pretty quickly falls for a female Exile but I'm not her. This guy is the guy with the magical bonding powers. And I'm not that pretty by most beauty standards.

Blue hair, kinda chubby in places like my thighs and stomach. I'm just average. So it's not like he would've taken one look at me and fallen in love like he kind of did with the Exile.

Knowing that, this is kind of flabbergasting me.

"You know," he pauses and shakes his head. "I was trying not to cop to this, but I don't remember your name."

I blank on that. Because I realize he never asked and we've been talking to each other for like four days and  _he didn't know my name_.

So I crack up, a little.

I'm just lying there on my cot, laughing my ass off because Atton doesn't remember my name.

Because Atton thinks we've met and since I knew his, assumed he must've known mine at some point-

And Atton doesn't know that was all a lie I came up with on the fly.

"Oh like you remember the names of everyone you meet," he mutters while my laughter is dying down.

"Why didn't you just  _ask?_ " I sit up and wipe some tears out of the corners of my eyes. " _God_  Atton. It's Mia."

"Okay, Mia," he says. Entirely deadpan. "Go and check on the Jedi if you want." He lies back on his cot and folds his hands under his head. "It's not like I care. But you know, you might wanna grab a weapon somewhere before you get there. Just in case."

Part of the agreement, the 'protection' was the proviso that I got to talk to our friend in the infirmary when he woke up. To explain everything that's been going on, so he won't panic. So if the Lieutenant is as good as his word, I should be able to be escorted there now.

Atton's worried either that there's more assassins out there, or that the Jedi will attack me. I don't really know. But it's nice of him to be worried, anyway. I mean, he doesn't need me.

He can fly the ship, fight, repair things, hack. He has absolutely no need of me whatsoever. I'm the one who needed the droids to do those things for me.

And Atton is still refusing to fix HK. I tried to explain that he's different but Atton was adamant. If I want HK fixed, I'll have to do it myself. Or get T3 to help me.

"Alright, but while I'm gone you've gotta try to stay off Kreia's radar," I say quietly. I know she can probably just sense us talking about her, but I have to say it. "Who knows what she's capable of. Don't talk to her, just…ignore her existence entirely if you can."

"Already on  _that_ ," he says. Eyes closing as he apparently prepares for a nap.

So I guess it's time to do some explaining to a very confused Jedi Exile.

Well. This is going to be interesting.


	9. Chapter 9

"So you're Atton," the Exile observes.

"Yeah…" Atton eyes the Exile like a snake in the grass. "And you're the Jedi."

"Ralin Tavira," he says. "And you, are Atton. So you're one of the people who saved my life."

Atton shrugs and crosses his arms. "I was on my way somewhere else. I did a favor for a favor. No big deal."

"I assumed as much," Ralin replies. "Not many are out for more than themselves in the galaxy." He looks at me then, and I don't like that look in his eyes. "I was quite surprised to find that even one fit that bill, in fact."

I laugh nervously, "self-interest takes many forms. I'm not as selfless as I appear. Nobody is."

"You're as close as anyone gets, I think," Ralin says.

I really hate that he's smoldering at me right now.

Apparently this Exile is kind of a flirt, but in that really intense, all-encompassing way that usually freaks me out if I'm not into the guy.

And I was the first person he saw after waking up completely and becoming ambulatory aside from the doctors and nurses so…apparently he's imprinting on me pretty hard.

It's a common thing, after you've been injured or been through some kind of confusing ordeal. You latch onto somebody. It's natural to want comfort but eh…

"Okay…" Atton drawls in the silence as I try to avoid the Exile's eyes. "Well, anyway, Lieutenant Grenn called. We're free to walk around or whatever, so long as we don't try to leave. So…I'm heading for the Cantina."

Ugh god, what a relief. "I'm coming too," I say.

Atton glances over his shoulder at me as he walks to the door. "Sure, whatever. You gotta pay for your own drinks, though."

I roll my eyes and follow him out. "I don't wanna drink, I just want out of this room!"

"Perhaps I should come as well," Ralin is turning to follow me as I go.

I turn and point at him. "Stay! You are still healing. Go to bed. Sleep. Eat. Something." And then I turn and run after Atton to catch up.

' _Oh please god don't follow us._ '

When I've sat down next to Atton on the tram, I'm relieved to see that he didn't. "Ugh…" I slump in my seat. "Tell me Cantinas actually have good music to dance to and not the crap we had to listen to on Peragus on loop?"

Atton huffs a little. "They'd better have good whiskey. Or at least some good vodka. Who cares about the music."

I turn my head and see him very determinedly looking down at the floor between his feet, and he seems angry. "Alright, I'll bite, what's wrong." It's more of a statement than a question. I know something is up, he's been…really terrible since I decided to go and see the Exile.

Not rude, but not really all that nice either.

Kinda rude. On the edge of rude. I guess.

"I mean, other than the fact that we're imprisoned on this station with Sith hunting us, bounty hunters probably around every corner looking for the Jedi, and I'm stuck with a bunch of people with targets drawn on their backs who act like everything's fine!" His voice is hitching upwards.

He's panicking.

"Atton, why didn't you say something?" I reach over and grasp one of his hands.

He actually flinches, but he doesn't pull away. I think I just surprised him. He also looks over at me like a deer caught in the headlights, so yeah the panic might be making the surprise a little worse.

Probably shouldn't have touched him but-

I don't really know how else to comfort him.

"You don't have to be part of all this. And even if you've got no other choice but to stick with us right now, I mean- I could find a way to get you-"

He make a noise that's very self-deprecating and not at all a laugh but it sounds like it's supposed to be and pulls away from me. "I'm fine where I am, thanks."

"Then what's the problem?" I ask.

"Your…damn…unflappable optimism. Or whatever the hell you wanna call it," he says. Flicking his wrist. "You act like you just  _know_  everything is gonna turn out okay, and it's…not. It never does."

"Okay well, first of all, the way I act doesn't necessarily reflect how I think or feel about all this that's…been happening." I guess it  _would_  look like that to him. "And you know I'm not gonna fault you for not believing everything is all sunshine and rainbows, right? I don't even go that far."

His lips tighten as he glances at me. "You keep walking around, like it's no big deal. No weapons, no concern. Nothing. It…makes me angry."

"What would make you feel better about it, then?" I quirk an eyebrow. "Cause I have got some news for you, I don't even know how to  _use_  a weapon. I basically just wing it."

He stares at me a moment and then his head drops and shakes back and forth a little. "I was afraid of that."

"And you still said absolutely nothing," I say. A little sing-song. "You can't get all pissy about a problem if you don't speak up about it. How am I supposed to make you feel more secure if I don't know that's what's wrong?"

He inhales deeply and then sighs. "At least tell me you know how to run and hide and at least…I dunno, the bare minimum of self defense?"

"Running and hiding I can do, but I've never taken any self defense classes. I mostly just get by with…uh…I dunno I guess you'd call it out-thinking my 'opponent'." I don't normally have actual opponents. Just enemies in video games and problems in real life with weird solutions.

Like sticking duct tape into my one-size-too-big high heels when I was a teenager so they'd stay on my feet and quit flapping around all over the place.

God, I still hate heels.

"You don't know how to use weapons." He says. "But you took down an assassin droid."

"I asked the engineer how to shut him down and then…attacked from behind." I shrug. "It was a lot easier than I thought it was gonna be, I'll tell you that much."

He looks at me with a look like he just can't figure me out, or he's trying to discern whether or not I'm some kinda hallucination.

"What?" I can't stand all this attention from men today. I'm blushing up to my roots.

"I'm imagining the carnage you could wreak if you knew how to use a blaster and a vibrosword." He purses his lips a little. "It's a lot. A lot of carnage."

"Oh well that's." I cough a little to clear my throat. Why am I getting so flustered!? "I always wanted to learn, I just…never really had the opportunity, or…someone willing to teach me."

"I am not doing that," he says.

Well that's disappointing, but it's not like I expected him to. "That's fine, I mean…I'm sure…Ralin-" God, I'm grimacing so hard right now.

"You know what, I'll agree under some conditions," he says. "But I am not babying you."

"Nobody asked you to teach me  _or_  baby me. Make up your mind," I snap. "If you want to teach me then do it, if not then don't. But don't imply that I'm  _soft_  before we even start. I  _will_  kick your ass."

"The worst part about that is that I think you could," he sighs. Then leans back in his seat and drops his head back. Staring up at the ceiling, he shrugs. "Fine. Self-defense. Blaster training. Some basic knife and sword handling. How hard could it be to teach somebody to fight?"


	10. Chapter 10

God, I'm such a space case.

"So we're following the Jedi now, because?" Atton is very patient with my bullshit, considering he always seems bored and unwilling to follow anyone anywhere.

"Because Kreia is a bad, Sith-y influence and I didn't need more than two minutes talking to her to determine that. He's just come out of a traumatic experience. If we leave him with her while he's making decisions and she sways him, he could end up down the path of the dark side or whatever." I flick my wrist. "If he's making bad decisions, I want them to be made for the right reasons and he needs to decide what those are himself, or…god, get more than  _Kreia's_ opinion."

"Considering Kreia hates me…" Atton drawls. "I wouldn't really want her having the ear of a guy who can slice me in half with a laser sword, I guess."

"Well there ya go, answered your own question," I reply. "Now…is this the place?"

It's gotta be. It's the only door around here covered in a wreath that seems to be happily growing on the door. Is there some kinda circular pot holding it there? What the hell.

"Looks like it," Atton shrugs. "Do we ring or knock or what?"

I sigh and reach over to press the only button next to the door.

The electronic voice of the front desk droid answers me. " _How may I help you?_ "

"We're the Jedi's companions, we're a bit late. Tell Ralin that Atton and Mia are here to join him if you wouldn't mind?" I answer.

" _I will inform sir Habat and his Jedi guest,_ " he replies.

"Thanks." And then I move over and turn around to lean back against the wall beside the door. "Now we wait."

Atton moves over to stand beside me and leans back into the wall too. Except he keeps looking at me. Like he wants to say something.

So I close my eyes, tip my head back against the wall behind me and sigh, "just spit it out, Atton. Once the droid's gotten the Jedi, we won't be alone anymore so if there's something you need to say before then-"

"I don't get you," he says. Even before I can really finish.

Turning my head and opening my eyes, I try to control my reaction to his…sudden proximity.

Cause he's turned so his shoulder is leaning into the wall, which…puts him really a lot closer to me than he'd seemed just a moment ago. His face is  _inches_  away, to the left of me. "You don't get what?"

It comes out a lot more…let's say 'strained', than I'd have liked.

"First you come off like some kind of do-gooder but then you're like…" he gesticulates and I recall that he's had a few drinks tonight. "You won a bunch of hands of Pazaak and then, then you cleaned that guy out and got him to pay you with one of his dancers and then you just- you just let her go. And then you swindle like three other guys and give the money to the dancers. So what are you, a criminal or a hero? I can't pin you down."

He looks so frustrated that it's cute, really.

I snort a little. "Atton, I'm not-"

The door next to us opens and Ralin walks out, looking around for us. Funnily enough not seeing us right behind him until he turns to go back in.

He startles a bit and I'm guessing his magical Jedi sense for detecting people hasn't come back yet. "Oh! There you are. Was there something you needed?"

"Actually yes, can we talk before you make a decision on the whole Ithorians vs Czerka thing?" I gesture a little weirdly with my hands but I am uncomfortable with the way his body language is all angled toward me and attentive all of a sudden.

I don't think he's a creep, I think he's just. Really lost right now and he's seeing me as something…I dunno what he's seeing.

"Are you for Czerka, then?" he asks. Seeming pretty surprised.

"No not exactly, I…" I glance over to make sure the door closed behind him. "I think they both have upsides and downsides, and if you give me the time, I can find a better alternative."

"How much time would you need?" he asks.

"I dunno, as long as we're here? Might be another few days, might be less- but I can find some way to make it all work. You'll still be helping the Ithorians, so Chodo would still need to help you. He did promise to help, right?"

"Right," he nods. "Well. I don't know you. I don't know what you're capable of, but. From what you told me and what I've gathered since waking, what you pulled off on Peragus was…something else."

I could've sworn I downplayed my part in Peragus. I tried really hard to do that. "Well, that's…"

"So I'm going to take a chance on you and see how it works out," he says. "Find me another option and I'd be happy to consider it."

"Great." I can't help the way I just beam, but I do regret it a second later when Ralin smiles back.

I shouldn't encourage him, even the littlest bit. But in order to not do that, I have to talk to him privately.

"Greeeaaat…" Atton drawls. "Are we going back to the Apartment now, or…?"

"You can go ahead," I say and smile. "I'll stay with Ralin and Kreia and walk them home."

"I can stay," he says. "Just…don't take too long."

Why does he look so small and kind of irritable all of a sudden?

"We won't," Ralin says. Walking by me to open the door and then ushering me in ahead of him.

The last glimpse I have of Atton before the door closes is of him with his head bowed and his shoulders hunched a little.

I'm worried about what that means, but I've got shit to plan for, so I'll deal with it later.


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I said on Tumblr that Mia had done something that cemented her as one of my boldest and most courageous OC's. Here it is. There's more after this that she does to shock me but you'll be seeing that soon enough.

When I walk back into the apartment after a fruitful night of searching out my quarry and building a rapport…I find Atton drinking and playing Pazaak. As usual.

Which is weird, considering I was kind of hoping he'd be at the bar tonight, so I could see him even while I was…I dunno if 'working' is the term. Schmoozing? Scheming? And it's weird because he usually prefers some kind of social atmosphere when he's drinking and playing cards.

He's not an alcoholic. Far from it- he never really seems to drink enough to get drunk. He'll nurse a bottle or two of beer or whatever it is all night while he plays on that little screen thing he uses for the game.

There's both physical and digital versions of Pazaak. I was surprised to learn that. I always thought the card game in the game itself was supposed to be like, the physical cards being dealt out and played physically but we couldn't see it because…well, because it was an old game and making it look all digital was easier than animating hands and physical cards and shit.

Kreia…is not here. And neither is Ralin. Which worries me, but I'm tired, so fuck it.

"Hey Atton." I yawn and slump on my bed, one over from his on the left side of the room. Kreia has the right side and…Ralin took the bed between us because why not. It's not like he could've slept two beds over from Kreia, or slept on Atton's other side…

"Have fun?" He intones boredly.

"If you can call trying to talk a man into betraying his boss so he can take over the company 'fun', then yes." I grumble as I curl up on top of my blankets. "God, it took so long just to get him loose enough to talk about his job. Now I've gotta conveniently point Ralin his way so that he can 'talk him into' helping him overthrow the current Czerka boss so he can work out a deal with the Ithorians. I hate having to talk to people."

I groan that last part and then shove my pillow over my head.

"So why even do it?" he asks.

It's kinda muffled, so I pull the pillow off and huff to hear him better and so he can hear  _me_. "Because if I don't, everything and everyone I have ever loved or will ever love could be put in jeopardy. This place is key to the future of the galaxy. Everyone knows it, but nobody wants to get off their ass and do anything unless it has some kind of benefit to them personally and…I can't even blame them for it."

He glances over at me, I see it in the corner of my eye, but when I turn my head to look, he's playing his game again. "Why not? Seems like a good reason to resent people. Selfishness is bad, right?"

"Not inherently," I reply. "And not…when it's all you've got for survival. If the galaxy were different…if people were actually taken care of by those in power instead of used and thrown away…"

"That will never happen," Atton mutters. "Not with the Jedi and the Sith around, anyway."

"So maybe we should find another way," I say and turn over on my back, staring up at the ceiling. "I mean, obviously the original Jedi went wrong somewhere, but they used to be different. There was no schism before, they were both. Dark and light. In Balance. There has to be a way to have that again."

"I don't know anything about that," he says. "If you know so much about Jedi and Sith and how this all began, maybe you should be telling Ralin about it."

"I will, but…I don't want to overload him. Or overwhelm him or…tell him things I have no proof for. After all, he might not believe me and then my credibility goes down the fresher." God I'm so glad I remembered there at the end- not to say 'toilet'.

"Yeah I guess," he replies. "So where are you gonna get that proof?"

"Dunno yet, but I'll keep looking." Then I glance aside at him again. "Can I play with you?"

He shrugs, "deck's over on the table."

Which means yes, but he doesn't want to actually say so. For some reason. He's so much more closed off than I remember.

Probably because this isn't a video game and there are no approval points and shit. I'll have to actually work if I want to know the real Atton outside of what I  _do_  know, or think I know, about him.

So I get up and walk over, plucking his physical deck up off the table and walking back over to him.

He curls up a little tighter against the headboard and lays the game thing face-down in front of him. I realize he wants me to sit on the other end of the bed and put the deck between us, so I do. Settling on my knees and waiting for him to draw his first card.

It's a big deck- but if we both draw five cards and then flip over each alternating card, it'll be just like the game I played before.

Though he seems to also be waiting on me. So I lean forward and start drawing out cards by placing them facedown in front of both of us. Five each.

"What do I get if I win?" he says.

And he's doing it again. Leering and trying to seem sleazy. But it just comes off so disingenuous. Like he's  _trying_  to be gross and push me away.

But he only does that kinda thing when he's afraid you'll get closer. Which usually either means you're showing signs of liking him too much…

Or it means he likes  _you_  too much.

"Hmmm," I pretend to let the innuendo fly over my head. "I don't have any credits left from my spree yesterday. Probably should've kept some, but…"

"You could always give me a kiss," he says.

Exactly as I'd expected him to.

I sigh and lean forward as if I'm going to draw another card. "No, I never bet with kisses. When I said you'd won it off of me, I was being facetious about the circumstances."

And then I just, keep, leaning.

His head was down until he realized I hadn't made a move and his face tilted up to look at me.

My mouth covers his smoothly, without resistance. He's surprised, but he goes still and closes his eyes instead of pulling away from me. And I know that because I can feel his eyelashes brush across the left side of my face as he pushes closer to me.

By the time he's reached out to grasp my upper arms and pull me closer, knocking the deck and the game board off the bed from between us, I've pulled back enough to breathe, but our lips are still brushing.

"But you can always ask," I whisper.

And that's the moment Ralin and Kreia decide to come back.

Because of fucking course it is.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the first OC I've ever had who's taken initiative and kissed first BEFORE twenty or so chapters. Even my Fenmance hasn't had a kiss in it yet and it's the fastest I've had two characters in a relationship.


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I'm updating like three times specifically so you guys don't murder me. Also, this is your warning, for those of you who don't like sexy things or smut or anything in that Wheelhouse, just avoid this 3 chapter update and start reading again next week.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! Know that interactive novel I ended up having to rewrite the beginning to?
> 
> Well here's the link to Book 1, Chapter 1!
> 
> First link is textadvantures and the second is philome.la. Depending on which you're more familiar or which you like more...
> 
> http://textadventures.co.uk/games/view/3brzzlnut0c0cdgiitluzw/aetherial-identity-rewritten  
> http://philome.la/UnrealRomances/aetherial-identity-rewritten
> 
> I finished chapter 1!!!

Atton's…been acting weird.

Ever since the 'pazaak' game we never finished, he's…well, I'd say he's  _clinging_  tightly to my side but that leaves out the attitude he does it with.

It's like Atton is trying even harder to get me not to like him, but while he's doing that…he can't leave me alone for like a second.

Not in a suffocating, no privacy way, though. He only goes with me when I leave the apartment and only stays within view so he can keep an eye on me, I think.

And it may have had more to do with Ralin coming back with Kreia to inform us that there were possibly more assassins and bounty hunters on the station as they'd just run into a couple.

They hadn't recognized Ralin as the Jedi, they'd just been talking about the bounty and ultimately deciding against it, as Jedi were 'too much trouble' and…

And now I'm never alone when I leave the apartment.

If it bothered me, I'm sure he'd make certain I never knew he was there, but the weird thing about Atton is…

Even when he's trying his damnedest to convince himself and  _you_  that you dislike, hate or just plain don't know each other well enough to have any kind of bond between you- he's still being this weirdly overprotective best friend who's always right there at your back.

He was like that with the Jedi Exile, but…I didn't think he'd do that with  _me_. I mean, Ralin's a pretty cool guy, so why not follow  _him_  around as he's the one who's actually in danger?

I guess the fact that I'm the weakest link in this chain could be it.

For the third time today he's walked with me where I was going and tonight he's watching from the opposite side of the room as Ralin acquaints himself with the friend I made just yesterday who's going to help us get this whole ball rolling.

I'm watching from the bar, so I tap the surface until the bartender takes notice of me and order some Alderaanian ale.

It's pretty pricey, but since I went around and played a couple hands of pazaak with the patrons in the bar before introducing Ralin to his new friend, I've got plenty.

Turns out I'm _really_  good at Pazaak? Better than I was in the game version anyway. Though that could be my ability to read a person I'm playing rather than just gaming the odds on a machine…

Walking over with the glass firmly secured in my grip, I drift through the dancing bodies and come up behind Atton- but he knows I'm there.

He makes a show of being startled when I set the glass down in front of him, but it isn't genuine. You can always tell when someone is pretending for your benefit. Or because they don't wanna seem creepy for watching you so closely they knew exactly where you were.

That too.

"Hey Atton," I lean on his shoulder and give him a look with a raised eyebrow. "Got a good view of Ralin over here?"

He clears his throat, "ah. Yeah, I uh…" He shifts and he really shouldn't have. Especially if he was going to say- "You can sit."

His lap is wide open and he just…it's too good of an opening, so I take it.

"Alright," I say. And then swing my left leg over his lap. I'm straddling him by the time he's even noticed what I'm doing.

My arms are looped around his shoulders and our faces are like an inch away from each other so I can see the wide-eyed look on his face. I snicker, "you offered me a seat."

"We're…I…" he actually stumbles a little before recovering. "Aren't we, supposed to be watching Ralin's back?"

But he's staring at my mouth. Flicking his gaze between there, my eyes and my throat. And maybe lower, but I'm not wearing a boob window tonight so I doubt it.

I grin a little and respond, "Are you watching him right now?"

Which causes Atton to look away from me, clear his throat and then lean a little to the side to check on Ralin.

I shift my weight to the opposite side and lean on him, lips tracing up the side of his throat. "See him?"

He gives what sounds like a choked affirmative.

"Keep your eyes on him," I say. Teeth scraping across his skin.

"You. Are. Evil." He grits through his teeth. "Ahh." His eyelashes flutter a little when my hips rock and grind against his.

"Still paying attention?" I ask with a very large grin on my face.

"You know damn well I'm not," he says. Glaring at Ralin across the room. "Is this going to be a thing with you? Is it fun for you?"

"God yes," I breathe into his ear, almost like a moan as my hips move again. "Do you want me to stop?"

"I so totally did not say that," he says. And his grip on my waist tightens. Then moves, down a little.

I bury my face in his shoulder as his fingertips start smoothing over my thighs and his thumbs inch closer to the apex of them, bit by bit. I have to muffle a moan when they pass over the front of my pants, pressing in and then around in circles.

"Two can play at this game," he warns me in a very dark undertone. "You sure you want to do this here? Now?"

"No," I breathe.

His hands stop moving and move back to my waist. "No?"

I nip his earlobe, "here no. Now, yes."

He stands up, and it's- god, I take a second to drop my legs from around him but he holds me in the air until my feet touch the ground.

Why do I think that's so hot?

"Come on," he mutters and starts towing me through the crowd by the hand.

I don't know where he's taking me and honestly I don't care. Somewhere quiet, dark and  _empty_ , please.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! Know that interactive novel I ended up having to rewrite the beginning to?
> 
> Well here's the link to Book 1, Chapter 1!
> 
> First link is textadvantures and the second is philome.la. Depending on which you're more familiar or which you like more...
> 
> http://textadventures.co.uk/games/view/3brzzlnut0c0cdgiitluzw/aetherial-identity-rewritten  
> http://philome.la/UnrealRomances/aetherial-identity-rewritten
> 
> I finished chapter 1!!!


	13. Atton POV

You know, other women would've balked at the sight of an abandoned prefab with a barely-working door.

That's kind of the reason I brought her to the place. Even though I half-expected this outcome because she's…

Her body shifts under mine, hips grinding against me and hands grasping at the skin under my shirt.

Stars, she tastes-

Trying to focus on anything right now would be damn impossible so I'm kinda glad she asked to move this somewhere else. If anyone  _did_  mess with Ralin, he'd probably be better off defending himself if we're…well. We'd get caught up with each other and probably wouldn't have noticed anyway.

Or I wouldn't. I don't know about Mia.

I don't know anything about Mia.

Except that when I nip at her lower lip and pull back to start pressing bites down her throat, she  _really_  likes it. Her soft voice moaning and whispering my name is the  _best_  thing I've ever heard. And the way her fingertips dig in my back when I bite down on a sensitive spot is even better.

If she wants to play, I'll play. It's not like I had anything else to do tonight. She's the only one out of all of us that can't fight and so long as I'm watching her-

Should probably be doing more watching and less touching, but the visual that calls up is not helping with that focusing thing right now.

Losing myself in the soft skin and heated breaths  _sounds_  great- and if we had a room with a door lock somewhere it's unlikely people might find us, I would probably wrap myself up in it and let go. But…

Every time I brush aside a little clothing and take a bite of a new spot of warm, soft skin- I listen for movement outside the door. I flick my eyes up to watch her face. Sense the room for anyone or anything lurking in the corners.

It's a difficult balance and I knew it was going to be, which is why I brought her here instead of going back to the apartment and kicking out the witch. I'm pretty sure all I'd have to do is kiss Mia in front of her and she'd get the idea and run off grumbling about 'idiots and fools' or whatever.

Might also have chased us out with a stick, don't know and don't really care right now. Not when one of Mia's hands is tangling in my hair and pulling me back up so she can kiss me so hard my brain has a hard time keeping up.

I was hoping she'd have enough self-control out of the two of us to reconsider this when she saw where I'd brought her- but as soon as we walked in, she pinned me to a wall and that was…well, that was the start of the slow descent toward the floor and now I'm…

The snap to her pants comes undone and my hands are working their way under with a speed that would probably signal exactly how desperate I am to feel her if she wasn't so caught up in it.

And she is. Stars, head thrown back, mouth open to let all the little sounds she's making escape- hips pushing up into my hand-

No footsteps, no other presences, and Mia's beautiful moans filling up the room.

I didn't see this coming. I never would have. I didn't expect her to kiss me yesterday, and thinking about that makes me wonder if she was going to jump my bones if Ralin hadn't come back with the cranky witch and I feel a rush of irrational irritation at the Jedi.

Sorry.  _Ex_ -Jedi.

Because as sure I am that this is a bad idea and keeping my distance would be safer and make  _so much_  more sense-

Her fingers dig into my scalp and she makes a louder noise, trying to say my name as my hand cups her breast and my lips brush across the top of it.

"Good?" I ask and then flick my tongue out over the hardened bud in the center.

" _God_ ," she whispers. " _So good_."

I'd think she were faking if I couldn't see the way her body twitched and feel how her insides were fluttering around my fingers- and how her breathing would pick up the exact second I touched her somewhere new.

She's just really  _really_  into it and that is going to kill me here in about two minutes.

Closing my mouth over the stiff peak, I suck gently in-between scraping my teeth over the soft skin around it.

She's. Stars, she's so warm, and wet and slick- I can feel her clenching around my fingers as she makes a choked noise and her back arches-

Women don't normally react to me like Mia does.

Or I guess I should say they don't react to  _Atton_  like Mia does. There were plenty of people who wanted Jaq, even if they didn't know what that meant. But Atton is…basically designed to be woman-repellent.

Mia  _ignores_  me when I act like a gross jerk and gets this light in her eyes when I banter with her. Which is  _also_  not usually how women react to me being sarcastic in the exact way that I am.

I kiss up over her exposed chest, up the side of her throat and then across her jaw until she tilts her head toward me and I can kiss her again.

It's the first time I've done this in…a while. Not a really long time, but long enough that I feel clumsy and awkward now that I've brought her off and she's coming down from the high. Blinking those beautiful green eyes at me, blue hair splayed all over the place on the floor.

"Hey," I say. And…almost grimace at myself.

Mia reaches up and runs her fingers through my hair, sending shivers down my spine. "Hey," she replies. In the sexiest husky voice I've heard in  _years_. "How do you want it?"

My mind actually goes blank. Because…to be frank, I've never been asked. It's always just kind of been assumed how I'd want it and that worked for me so I went with it. It's not like I've never been asked other questions, but this one is so…nonspecific.

"Okay, Atton?" She frowns and pulls me down a little closer, legs wrapping around my waist. "You can still stop if that's what you want."

My body freezes up and I don't know what to say or do. I've never been the one that determines these things. I mean, the entire reason we're here, is because  _she_  wanted  _me_.

"It's okay," she kisses my throat. "Do you want me to touch you or do you want to stop altogether?"

"Touch me," I gasp a little, feeling sorta starved for breath. Giving me two options made it easier. An open-ended question is harder to answer. But I know I don't want her to stop.

"Sit up for me?" she asks softly.

She follows me up, not letting more than a few inches of space come between us. And then she's pressing me into the wall behind me again, kissing me like she's got all the time in the world and why do I like  _that_  so much-

"Okay?" she asks as she unfastens the front of my pants and tugs on my boxers underneath.

I'm a little too far gone for words, but I nod a little too fast.

She kisses my cheek and I can feel her grinning against my skin. "Be good and don't move."

The worst part is, I know I should and I also know I won't.

I've never been great at that restraint thing.


	14. Chapter 14

Everything about this seems too good to be true. I mean, Atton seems sleazy but it's actually pretty difficult to get him to trust and open up to you.

So it's strange to see him so vulnerable with someone- I.E. me -when we just met like less than a week ago. Has it been a week now?

Shivering every time my fingertips drift somewhere sensitive- either under his shirt or over his pants, and staring down at me when he's not squeezing his eyes shut-

It all strikes me as very vulnerable, though he might not see it that way. Lots of men don't.

My tongue is firm against the slim shaft in my hand and every stroke upwards causes his jaw to work a little to loosen his clenched teeth.

A sharp inhale when I take the head into my mouth and suck half of him inside- I've never really practiced deepthroating and I don't want to do it right  _now_  and end up gagging and choking.

Hands tangling up in my hair, holding tightly but not pulling or pushing. Just holding on as my head moves and the smooth, velvety feel of his skin in my mouth becomes-

I moan around him as I move and his fingers tighten in my hair. Which is when I remember that vibration feels  _really_  good and start humming.

He almost moves. His hips go still and rigid in a way I know he's trying not to buck and I smooth one of my hands up his stomach and over his chest soothingly.

God I can't even believe this is happening, right now.

It's not like I think I'm undesirable or that I never believed it would happen- I mean. He kissed me back yesterday and didn't seem bothered by the very fake idea that I'd kissed him in the past. (That lie is going to haunt me forever.)

But I'd only really intended to flirt and tease a little, and it was like I'd opened the floodgates or something. As soon as I'd shown any willingness to get close and play around, he was responding with such enthusiasm I just couldn't believe my luck.

Which told me about three things.

First, Atton was really only at the club to watch  _me_  and only put up a pretense of being there for Ralin which was a little odd but, whatever.

Second, that he was most definitely attracted to me and was willing to do more than just kiss me which I wasn't really sure about before.

And Third-

He leans over me, face almost buried in my hair, but far back enough I don't smack my head into him as I move. Muttering words that I don't really recognize because he's saying them so quickly and softly that I only really get it when his whole body tenses in a rigid line.

I squeeze him a little with my hand and feel the way his cock twitches in my mouth- and I can taste him on my tongue.

He finally sighs and drops down far enough to hide his face in my hair and gasps for breath for a moment. "I…was that…?"

I think he's  _trying_  to ask if it's okay that he didn't pull out of my mouth but his thoughts are still jumbled up in the afterglow.

So I pull back and smooth my hands up the front of his body, over his shirt and cup his jaw in my hands so I can kiss him full on the mouth.

The sound he makes is  _obscene_  and the way he clutches at my arms to drag me in closer makes my entire body throb with unspent want.

If I'd have expected anything from Atton it would've been either utter awkwardness or smooth skill in this area, not a little of both. He makes it seem like he's either inexperienced or just experienced enough to know exactly what to say to push you away so…

He drags me up into his lap again and it's just like that moment in the club. His thumbs don't have to stop at the front of my pants, now that they're open, they can drift in circles directly over my clit and around my lower lips.

And then I'm on my back again and he's drifting down my body, but going further this time.

I gasp his name when his lips touch my skin, a brief and fleeting kiss that becomes deeper as his tongue flicks out to stroke up the center of me. His hands have pushed my pants far enough to get to me with his mouth but haven't removed anything else.

Even my shirt was only unfastened halfway before and I never knew this about myself but apparently I have a clothed sex kink so that's something new I know about myself and  _fuck_ -

He doesn't stop when I start to writhe and bears down when my voice starts escaping me in high-pitched moans and whimpers and half-assed attempts at calling out his name.

When it hits me, I arch up, gasping and crying out. I can still feel him there when I finally come down from the high, lapping at my entrance until I reach down and tug on his hair.

He crawls up my body and kisses me deep and slow.

The third thing this tells me about Atton is that he's just as eager to please as he could possibly be. Not just in the way I thought he was, constantly seeking approval and adulation from the Jedi Exile but also in the sense that he'd probably sit there all night bringing me off over and over again if I asked.

I don't…know why I feel that's true, but I just  _do_. His energy right now is very…

"Good," I press a kiss to his cheek and jaw. "You were so good."

He dips his head and rests his forehead on my shoulder. "Not so bad yourself."

I snort and then he chuckles and soon we're both just kinda lying there, laughing at the ridiculousness of this.

We're both dressed with our pants half-off, and we just fucked each other with fingers, lips and tongues until we were both incoherent and we're in some abandoned old apartment with a broken-ass door.

"This was fun, we definitely need to do this more often," I'm half-joking. I mean, I expect that after this, Atton might lose interest. Or he might pull back because in the end, Atton is a defensive creature and any mentions of what we might do in the future could potentially scare the shit out of him.

But he pulls back enough to look at me from about two inches in front of my face, hovering there and staring into my eyes with this…this glaring  _hunger_  just below the surface and says, "yes. We do."

And I mean, what else can you do at that point but kiss the guy again and let your hands tangle in his hair so hard he moans. I couldn't think of anything better than that, so here we are.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have no fucking idea what happened. Mia took over and she was NOT waiting twenty to thirty to fifty chapters before she got to sleep with Atton, apparently.
> 
> I have no idea who this woman is.


	15. Chapter 15

"What are we doing  _here_?" Ralin asks.

"Talking about something that I know is going to come up, since you've gotten so chummy with Kreia," I reply. Sliding over next to him on the tram as the doors close. "These trams are comfy and relatively private when next to no one is on them and most people usually treat things like this as liminal spaces where I'm from where weird shit just happens so what we talk about probably won't raise any eyebrows."

He lifts his own eyebrows in disbelief and glances around, taking note that everyone on this tram is either staring at a device, looking at the floor or talking to their seat partners but not really paying attention to anyone around them. "You know…I never really thought about that before. I was traveling for so long- one would think I'd notice that."

"You were alone, I'm guessing," I reply. "Probably one of those people who just looks at the floor or out a window, if there is one. Also, we need to go get our stuff from lock-up today." And find out that the Ebon Hawke was stolen, probably- because the canon of this universe just keeps leaping up and biting me in the ass. "So we'll take the long tram ride around."

He nods, "alright. What did you want to talk about? After all this mess with Czerka and the Ithorians, I could use a good conversation with someone who isn't a criminal or trying to manipulate me with promises they don't keep."

I guess Chodo told Ralin that the healing he'd receive was the good deed he was doing and since Ralin wasn't really the total architect of this whole situation and it resolved super fast…

It didn't have the effect on him that it had on the canon Exile in-game. Since that's a psychological thing, though…I mean, I can just help him heal myself if that's all Chodo was going to do. So I get the frustration.

"He didn't exactly make any promises beyond trying to help you," I say and shrug. "He has his own way of viewing the galaxy and to his mind, he was showing you a path that maybe you hadn't seen before. He was wrong, I mean, you went to war to help people, right?"

He dips his head and a shadow crosses his face. "Right."

"So you already know what it feels like to do that stuff," I say. Smiling. "He was just giving you the opportunity to get back into the swing of things and you do feel good, don't you?"

He shrugs. "I suppose. Though I'd have liked some actual force healing techniques to have been implemented in some way. Even if it wouldn't have worked, it'd feel more like he actually tried and didn't just lie to my face."

"I get that sometimes people's motivations, when shrouded, can seem sinister," I say. "And sometimes they just are. But other times, you just…don't have the context that they do. Just keep that in mind, okay?"

He nods and smiles tiredly at me. "Is that all?"

"No…not all. Has Kreia started in on her 'helping people is useless' crap yet?" I ask and then purse my lips. To keep in all my opinions about how complex and yet ultimately wrong she is because if given the opportunity, my ass will infodump all over him.

"She did say…something to that effect, yes." He says slowly and then frowns at me. "Have you known her much longer than Peragus?"

"Yes and no," I reply and then flinch a little at myself. "I'm sorry, but it's…personal. Also it might really confuse you and I'd rather you form your own opinions about myself and Kreia and anyone else we might meet- I don't wanna lead you around by the nose depending on who I know from when or whatever."

Ralin smiles and he's got that look on his face again. I hate that look. "That sounds like a good policy to have. Anyway, what about it?" Stop looking at me like I'm the freakin' sun, please.

"Kreia has…a unique perspective that's been formed around her own experiences, like everyone else. But if you ever want a more nuanced view of the situation, ask someone else with a different or even the same but marginally different, opinion. I myself am always willing to help out with that kind of thing, but you should also ask Atton-"

"Do I have to?" he grimaces. "No offense to Atton or anything, but he…gives me this terrible feeling in the pit of my gut."

Well he's not a Jedi Hunter anymore so I don't know what that could be about. "Uh…did he always give you that feeling or was it something he said or did…?" My tone is tilting upward at the end.

"Well…" He seems a little embarrassed. "Now that you mention it, I can clearly recall I didn't really think much about him at all until after that meeting with Chodo. He seemed to start behaving a bit more…I don't know what the word is…defensively, I suppose?"

"I hadn't noticed that at all," I reply. "What is it about him that seems defensive?"

He sighs. "Well…he doesn't really do it around you, if I recall correctly. I mean, I'll get a sort of look from him every once in a while but he saves the…tone in his voice, for when we're alone, or with Kreia. When you're around, he seems to simply avoid acknowledging my existence entirely."

"That's…weird. I'll talk to him and see if there's anything bugging him. But anyway- my entire point is that you need to ask people other than Kreia or me for information. If it has to do with Twi'lek culture, for example- you'd ask a Twi'lek from that culture. They'd give you much-needed context."

"So you're cautioning me against taking too little counsel," he says. "I have to say, I wasn't expecting that. Perhaps a warning not to let Kreia counsel me too  _much_  but certainly not for you to encourage more counsel to off-set her."

"It's how everyone should make decisions, but especially you," I say. Lifting a finger and tapping him on the chest right over his heart. "This power inside you? It needs to be wielded by the man who went to war to save a galaxy- not the Jedi, the  _man_. You knew what was right then. I just want to make sure you know that and continue to keep doing it."

"Was it right though?" he asks. "I feel so lost and confused lately."

"What other option was there? Allow the Mandalorians to sack so many planets their numbers would've dwindled enough that the Jedi could destroy them utterly with little effort?" I ask. "Were all those people who would've died or been enslaved had you not acted, less important than the lives that were lost? Or Vice Versa?"

He dips his head. "I…I don't know."

"I do." I pat my chest over my own heart. "I can't tell you how to feel about it, but from a purely logical, ethical point of view- you couldn't have done anything else. And from an emotional point of view, it sucked but it needed to be done."

His lips curve just the slightest bit. "I suppose now that I have your opinion, I should go around and take a poll."

"That's another thing," I reach over and pick up one of his hands, flipping it over and plopping a small hunk of metal into it. "What is this?"

He clears his throat. Obviously confused at the segue, but rolling with it. "A lugnut of sorts for a specific sort of droid assembly," he explains.

"If you asked me my opinion on this and I was a newly trained engineer who'd tried to use it to put together the wrong kind of droid and my opinion was that it was a faulty bit of metal that wouldn't fit right where it was designed to go- would you take my word for it, or even hesitate and doubt yourself?" I ask.

He frowns and tilts his head. "If I knew you were new to it and what type of parts you were using, I might explain that you were using the wrong type of lugnut."

"Right, but what if you didn't know that?" I ask. Quirking a brow. "Would you assume that because that engineer seemed to know what he was talking about when it came to other things, that because he deemed it faulty, it must be? Or even hesitate to check and see yourself before chucking it?"

He thinks about that and a lightbulb seems to go off in his mind. "I see! Asking people for their opinion on something they know nothing about will be fruitless."

I snort and pat him on the shoulder, "yeah. But also 'you should find out what a person knows about a subject before asking their opinion'."

Nodding, he agrees. "Yes, absolutely. I thought you were speaking generally before about asking someone else…but you meant that you, Atton and Kreia all have a unique view of the galaxy and a lot of knowledge on many complex subjects. And that I should benefit from those myriad experiences."

"I'm terrible at just saying things outright," I reply with some chagrin. "Communication is not my forte."

"No no, it's even better than that," he says. Grinning a little. "I had to figure this out for myself, which makes everything impact me a bit deeper. The Jedi tried to teach that way, but most of the time…"

"It just ended up being a way for Masters to avoid answering any questions at all and taking credit for whatever little their Padawans could figure out on their own?" I ask.

He sighs. "Are you sure you weren't formerly a Jedi as well? You seem to know them as well as I do."

"I'm pretty sure I'm not force-sensitive so they wouldn't have been interested in me," I reply. "But I have had my experiences with the order."

"I will assume you don't want to share them?" He asks, rhetorically.

"Like I said, it's personal. A lot of stuff in my past is…deeply personal." I shrug. "Anyway, this is our stop!"


	16. Chapter 16

" _Now_  what do we do?" Ralin sighs and slumps down onto his bed. "The ship, stolen. We're still technically under 'protection' and we can't  _go_ anywhere…"

"There's lots of ways out of here if you're willing to cut legal corners," Atton says. "But then we'd probably never be able to come back without the TSF crawling up our exhaust."

"We'll find a way off the station, and once they've realized we were right about the Sith, we'll be exonerated, but Atton is right…we wouldn't be able to come back in the meantime." I say. "So if we're leaving, it'd better be after all our business here has been taken care of."

I'd be nervous about talking about this in here, but to be honest I'm in kind of a careless mood right now. In the game, nothing happened to hinder their progress off this station, so I'm just kind of letting things flow for the most part.

"Well, I've already handled the deal between Czerka and the Ithorians," Ralin says. "Czerka will find ways to fund the Ithorians projects and the Ithorians will find more cost-effective ways to do things. Everyone's happy, Telos benefits." He shoots me a muted smile at that and I look away, wishing desperately that we were at the bar so I could gulp down a shot.

"So we're good to go, no more obligations or anything." Atton stretches his neck and rolls his shoulders. "I say we get off this station as fast as possible, and get far  _far_  away from anyone trying to collect any bounties. I'd suggest Nar Shaddaa."

"Nar Shaddaa with all the bounty hunters on it?" I ask with both eyebrows raised.

Atton concedes with. "Okay maybe anywhere  _but_  Nar Shaddaa."

"We must go after the Ebon Hawk," Kreia speaks for the first time in  _hours_  to say. "We know it is on Telos."

"We can't get the permissions to land in the biomes without the TSF and we'll anger them by trying to leave," Ralin interjects.

"I mean…" I pause and chew my lip a little. "Grenn can't blame us if we want our stolen property back, the property that was lost under his supervision- AND they let an actual assassin in here…"

"Wow, you really are a little bit evil," Atton says. But he says it like he likes it and I don't know how to react other than ducking my head and sighing to hide my face.

"It's not evil to hold them accountable for their own mistakes," I say. "Normally I'd have a more forgiving heart about it all, but really…I guess I'm still sour I almost died because they didn't check that dude's credentials at the door hard enough."

"Do you really think they'd let us go down there legally if we blackmail them?" Ralin asks, with a general sense of incredulity. Spreading his arms and everything, like he can't believe me.

"Not really, no. It's just an option I was presenting." I shrug. "Sometimes that approach works, sometimes it doesn't. It depends on the person. And I wasn't suggesting blackmail, unless you count  _emotional_  blackmail. I just meant we could remind him of all the things that have happened to us in his care and maybe he could be convinced to let us fix one of those things."

"You seem to be very practiced in the art of manipulation," Kreia observes. "Something taught to you, or learned?"

"Both," I reply. Crisply. "And every conversation you have with someone in which you try to argue your own side is a manipulation. I'm not special just because I'm particularly good at it."

There's a momentary silence after that declaration.

Everyone is either looking at me like they've never seen me before or- well. Kreia who just kinda seems to be staring at nothing.

Atton, for his part, looks a little spooked. But more in a 'how did I not see that coming' kind of way?

On Ralin's side, it looks like he might be just a little bit worried.

"Well it's true," I insist. "In order to reach people on a deeper level, you have to understand them. Other people see this as manipulation because they can only stubbornly stab at other people with their ideas, or beat them over the head with them. And sure, it can certainly be used for dark purposes. So can anything else in literally the entire universe."

"True," Atton drawls. "But people aren't usually aware of doing that."

"They are, they just use words that don't mean 'manipulate'," I reply. "Anyway, Ralin. What do you  _want_  to do. Stay? Wait for Grenn to let us go? Or leave?"

"I…don't know," he says. "If it were simply a question of getting the ship back, then I would know what to say we should do. But we don't  _need_  the ship, do we?"

"I didn't say what we  _should_  do. What do you  _want_  to do?" I reiterate.

He pauses to think about that and Atton scoffs.

"Asking a Jedi for personal aims and opinions is about as useless as trying to fix an engine with a toothpick," he says. "Sure, he hasn't been one in a while, but I doubt he even knows what he _doesn't_  want."

Ralin looks a little sheepish and embarrassed so I shoot Atton a sharp look.

He makes a face at me. "What?"

"Atton, you can't blame the victims of brainwashing for buying the bullshit they've been fed." I say.

There's another silence as an air of… _something_  comes over Ralin, who's head is bowed over his lap now.

"Anyway, we should talk about this in the morning. It's late, and I'm tired." Not only am I really fucking exhausted, Ralin looks like he could use a break. And Atton is acting snotty which he usually does in the game and I used to  _laugh_ \- but it never really occurred to me how it made people feel.

It was a snippy, sarcastic line meant to make me laugh most of the time. I didn't think about how nasty he could be. I mean…I'm aware of it.

Just never seemed like this big a deal before.

"Yes, rest before we act." Kreia agrees and turns to Ralin. "Join me in meditation, and it will help you to order your thoughts. The girl is not incorrect to ask you to find the desires within yourself. But searching for something you've never had will not bear fruit all at once."

"Take your time and really search  _yourself_ , Ralin," I say and catch his eyes when he looks up. "Don't let anyone else influence your desires. Find what  _you_  want."

He nods, still with that air of  _something_  that I can't name.

Atton flops on the bed next to me, which is usually where Ralin sleeps, and closes his eyes. Like he's intent on falling asleep there.

Ralin sits cross-legged on the floor with Kreia and they begin to meditate.

I stare at Atton's blank face for a few moments until his eyes open and he quirks a brow at me.

Then I just shake my head, sigh and close my own eyes while flopping backward onto the mattress, intent on some rest before everything goes to hell tomorrow.


	17. Chapter 17

"You've been acting weird," Atton observes.

We're in that 'borrowed' shuttle. Got it from our new friend in Czerka.

And knowing that it's gonna be shot down and we're all gonna be injured and that I might possibly die because I'm not as durable as the rest of these people-

Well, it's making me a little antsy.

I'm hoping that not having the Vocabulator from that other HK unit will mean that second attack won't happen, but like…there were other factors beyond just the tracker. They're probably chasing the Ebon Hawk, thinking we're still there.

Whatever. The AA guns are gonna get us first, so worrying about the HK's later on in a different shuttle is useless.

I just know it's gonna be the same kind of shuttle as this and I'm gonna have to crash  _twice_ , damn it!

"This shuttle is smaller than the Ebon Hawk and I don't feel great flying through space to begin with, but at least in that ship I felt marginally safe. And less cramped," I explain. And it's true. I hate how small and unsafe this little shuttle feels. A lot.

"I'm not gonna crash, relax," he says. "But if it makes you feel better, you can sit on my lap."

"Kreia and Ralin are on the other side of that flimsy-ass wall and you pick now to be flirty," I grumble.

"The prefab had a broken door and you didn't complain then," he says.

He is  _also_  being weird. Just as casually sexual as before though now it's less forced creepiness and more playful, which is great…

"The prefab was also dark and in an isolated- or at least somewhat isolated -location." I snort and shake my head. "And I was really horny, and right now I'm just kind of anxious which is not sexy."

He shrugs, "if you say so."

Well, I'm kind of laughing, so I guess…I feel better. "Thanks." I kind of mutter it, but from the way he tenses up in his seat next to me, I think he heard me.

But he pretends he didn't.

This is also a thing he does. Pretending he doesn't do nice things all the time, hiding beneath a veneer of sarcasm. The only person he's really mean to is apparently Ralin and I have no idea why.

He's supposed to be  _loyal_  to the Exile.

"So why are you so mean to Ralin?" I ask. Because why not.

He looks over at me. "I'm not  _mean_  to Ralin. I just don't trust the guy."

"And you trust  _me_?" I ask incredulously.

"What? No, of course not, we met like a week ago." He says. And then swallows. "I just distrust him  _more_  because he's got magical force powers, okay?"

"Because he was a Jedi but now you don't know what he is?" I ask, tentative.

He actually gives me another glance, eyes a little wide before he goes back to normal. "I…guess so."

"Don't be so freaked out, I'm 'manipulative' remember? Means I notice things and put the pieces together. I'm not reading your mind, or whatever," I say. And then cross my arms and sigh.

"The fact that you knew that I was afraid you were reading my mind, doesn't really-"

The shuttle jolts in the air. Hard. And Atton leans forward in his seat, furiously tapping the controls. Alarms start going off and the lights in the cabin turn red.

"Oh god, are we crashing?" My anxiety is peaking in a wave that's rolling over me so hard I think I might be crying already.

"Uhhh!" Atton tries to control our descent, but mostly he just looks frantic for a moment before-

He turns sideways and unclips both of our belts.

"Atton!?"

And then he yanks me into his arms and opens the door behind us, sealing it shut and grabbing hold of the wall struts. I don't ask any questions- I know nothing about crashing, but Atton probably does?

He uses his belt to fasten our arms to the wall strut next to us and then crowds me against it tightly, his other arm wrapped around me. "Hang on!"

And then we impact. And…everything gets kind of fuzzy at that point.

…

…what…

…I don't…understand…

There's pain, a sort of confusion and…I'm so cold. Why am I cold?

"Hey hey, shhh, easy," a voice…says to  _me_?

Oh I'm whimpering. I don't know why. It abruptly cuts off as soon as I notice it and my teeth grit.

"I think she heard you that time," another voice says. "Mia, dear, can you hear us?"

I shudder and shrink into the source of warmth next to me, away from the second voice. "Cold…"

"She has lost a lot of blood," a third voice says. "We could give her a transfusion if any of you are a match?"

"We don't know her blood type," the first voice says. And it's…familiar, I know it. "And we don't have a kit. Our shuttle-" He cuts off and growls a little in the back of his throat. "Take her and I'll get what we need."

"How?" the Second voice asks.

I'm moved and I can't help whimpering in pain again. "Just don't drop her, damn it."

Another source of warmth, but the second voice doesn't bring comfort like the first did. I start crying a little louder, I can't really help it. It  _hurts_.

"Atton! They'll hear her." the voice hisses.

"So talk to her and get her to calm down, I need to  _go_ , stay here." the first voice…is…Atton.

Ralin. Atton…

Third voice…I know the third voice, too. Goddamn it, who is it? And why do I feel like it's the wrong one? Or…like there should be another?

I don't know!

"Atton," I whine and start carefully curling into a tight ball.

"He'll be right back, and he'll bring something to fix you up with, I promise," Ralin says. "You have to be quiet, though, Mia. Please. I know it hurts, but they'll hurt you and  _us_  more, if they find us."

Are they hurt? Is  _Atton_  hurt? Where did he go, what is he doing?

I don't like  _any_  of this.

A huff of laughter, "well I wouldn't expect that you would, Mia. Just hold on and breathe."

Did I say that out loud? Ugh.

"Ah…your friend is…" that other voice again.

"Atton!?" an alarmed whisper.

"Used the med-scanner from the shuttle, still intact. He has a universal blood type." Atton's voice and then a loud thud. "Just be sure to be finished hooking it all up before he comes around."

"Did you also find- ah. A med kit." That other voice is becoming more and more familiar.

"We should be moving toward our objective, not-" is that Kreia?

"Shut it, witch." Atton says, almost like he's distracted. "Hand her here, I'll lay her out, you help him get her blood and I'll keep her calm."

I'm jostled again, but this time I curl tighter into the warmth of Atton's torso and wind my fingers into his jacket. The fingers I can  _feel_  anyway.

"You're okay," he says in a low tone. "Gonna set you down, but I'm not going anywhere, alright?"

"We'll give her an injection to deal with the pain, that should also keep her relatively calm." that…voice…

Wait. No. Yes? Bao-

Ohhh that feels  _nice_.


	18. Chapter 18

"Oh we're on another shuttle already, why…" I wake up and groan in pain- two kinds of pain.

Physical as  _well_  as…whatever you call this emotion. Knowing I'm about to crash again is…really really not making me happy right now.

"Hey, you up?" Atton is stopped in the doorway.

"Why aren't you driving!?" I leap up into a sitting position and instantly regret it when the room spins and I fall back down. "Ugh!"

Atton walks over at a sedate pace. "Yeah might wanna watch that. And our new best friend has steering handled. It's not long before we land anyway."

Ohhh no. That means it's not long before we crash.

I push myself up into a sitting position, slowly this time. "Can you…strap me in? Or onto something? I really am not loving being in a shuttle after a shuttle crash."

"Sure the cot has straps," he hits a button and I'm yanked down back into place and now I can't move. "Sure you don't wanna use the fresher first though?"

"Why are you being so  _you_  right now?" I ask in annoyance. "Ugh. Everything hurts."

"What do you want, for me to bring you juice and cookies?" he asks. "We treated you and gave you a transfusion, there's nothing else to do but get you to rest. And since you're up, I guess that's off the table for now."

"Will you stop doing that thing where you try to be a jerk to get people to stop liking you and just  _talk_  like a normal person?" I say. Aggravation dripping from my tone. "What's wrong? What happened? Why are you all of a sudden back to that guy I met on Peragus? No, in fact,  _worse_  than that guy!"

"I don't know what you're talking about, this is who I am. Deal or don't, I don't really care." He says as he walks out of the room.

And then I'm stuck. Strapped in. And like he said I could  _really_  use a trip to the 'fresher'.

Lucky for me, Ralin chooses that moment to appear. "Mia? Are you finally awake?"

"Please unstrap me and then strap me back in in a minute," I ask.

Ralin walks over with a furrow in his brow. "Uh…alright?"

And then the straps are disengaged and I walk to the fresher as calmly as I can. Trying to keep upright, though I feel dizzy and weak.

When I return, I hop up on the cot, lie down and nod and Ralin presses the button for the straps.

He still looks confused, though. "Are you…alright?"

"Considering the last thing I remember is being in a shuttle and crashing, finding myself on another shuttle is a little distressing." Especially when I know there's a good chance of it crashing a second time. That's  _really_  making me anxious. "Though, question. Is Atton being surlier than usual to everyone or just me?"

"He's doing it with you, too?" he asks. Looking a bit surprised. "He never does that."

I snort. "Never. We've known each other how long?"

"A week and a half, now," he says. Then grimaces. "Though you were unconscious for at least three of those days."

"Three days!?" I move to sit up, but the straps hold me down so securely all I really manage to do is tense up and send all the blood rushing to my head.

Ow.

"It's alright," Ralin soothes with a low tone. "We landed in one of the safe zones, but there were Czerka men in the area who hadn't been given the orders to let us pass. We had to negotiate after capturing one of their men and making him call our friend on the station. It was…something."

"But everyone's fine? Why did it take three days?" I ask.

"Had to settle some things," Ralin replies. Looking uncomfortable. "I met someone from my past I wasn't expecting to see again. He was…unhappy that we were allied with Czerka. I had to explain myself, and I didn't do so well, at first."

"Tried to kick your ass?" I ask.

Ralin makes a small amused noise. "A bit."

"How'd you finally end the fight?" I ask.

"I didn't, Atton actually ended it," he says. Looking a bit surprised to be saying the words. "He threw a sonic grenade and once our ears had stopped ringing, we could hear him shouting at us to wait until other people weren't trying to kill us to fight each other."

That does, actually, sound like Atton. His survival instincts are finely honed- to the point that any danger to his life makes him physically feel something. Having a bunch of guns around, aimed at him while he waited for someone to tell them he wasn't a threat and then to have, on top of that- a powerful force user and strong ex-soldier going at each other-

Must've been nerve-wracking. Though that can't be why he's acting like a dick. Atton has two different dick-modes. 'Stop liking me, I don't want any attachment to you' and 'Everything is going wrong so I hate everyone'.

This felt like mode one more than mode two. So what happened to make him all weird?

"Did you get the chance to talk things out with him after that?" I ask.

He shakes his head. "He doesn't want to talk to me."

"Well, when I get a chance, I'll try to explain," I reply. Sighing. Because this situation is all my fault. Ralin would've helped the Ithorians, Bao-Dur wouldn't be mad at him, everything would be going smoothly.

And then the shuttle shudders and I squeak so hard I can feel pain in my throat.

Ralin trips forward and grabs hold of the cot I'm lying on. "What is-"

"Brace for impact!" I think that's Bao-Dur.

"Great, wonderful. Just don't let me die before we can reach a med-center-"

And then everything goes black again but this time instead of fear I just feel annoyed.

' _Why is this my life right now. Why didn't throwing away the damn- oh wait, fuck. They tracked you down because of the flight plan in that underground place. Damn it! Of all the times to be unconscious…_ '


	19. Chapter 19

I'm pretty sure I'm waking up a lot sooner than I did last time. I have no sense of time passing but I certainly feel less sleep-logged.

Maybe that's just because I got enough sleep instead of too much…I dunno…

"She's waking up," a soft voice mutters. "I must inform Atris of this. The Jedi will finally speak to her if his companion is healed."

"What of the other one?" another voice asks. "Shall we keep him sedated?"

"Until Atris orders otherwise. He is a threat, and he refused to comply," the voice from before replies. "Inform her of the situation if she asks, but do not offer any information that our mistress did not approve."

"Of course," the second voice replies.

And then…footsteps. Swish. A door? Swish again. Closing.

"I can feel you listening, will you not open your eyes?" The second voice from before asks, near my…where am I?

I slowly force my eyes to blink open, shrinking away from the bright lights and turning my head toward where the voice was.

And after my eyes adjust and everything in my head stops spinning, I am face-to-torso with Brianna the handmaiden.

Wait, I'm not supposed to know her name. The Handmaiden.

"What's going on?" I think I might garble a little of it but she seems to get what I'm asking.

"You have been sedated while your body healed. You were…injured quite extensively. I am told you were injured even before the crash, and your health reflected this at the time we scanned you. So we agreed to heal you."

"Atton…Ralin…" I try to put an uptick at the end, but don't quite make it.

Thankfully she takes my meaning. "Your companions are here. The Jedi is…refusing to see our mistress until you are tended to. They will bring him here so he can see you and then he will go and see Atris. As for the others, the Iridonian and other female are being held in force cages. The other human male is on the bed across from you."

My brain computes all the crew members and I turn my head to see Atton lying on the cot just across the room from me.

I push myself up, even though my muscles scream and Brianna tries to gently gesture at me to get back down. I sit up and take a deep breath to center myself when the room starts to spin. "Atton. I want. I need to-" I gesture futilely in his direction.

"Moving you at this time would be disorienting, perhaps even very distressing," she says.

"Is he…can he…hear us?" I ask.

Her response, when I open my eyes to look at her, is a headshake.

"I love him," I tell her. "We aren't…bonded. Or anything like that. And he doesn't know. But I am feeling anxious, and would feel better if I could check his vitals myself. I would just…need to touch him. With one hand. Or lie next to him and hear his heartbeat."

Her eyes peer into mine for a long moment but she moves to help me into a standing position.

I have to keep my eyes closed the whole way over and then spend several minutes lying in a very cramped position next to Atton, breathing- before I can move closer, and curl up in his arms.

He's lying on his side, so it's not hard to get his arms situated around me so I can press my ear to his chest.

A long sigh escapes me when I hear his heartbeat and feel his breathing on my hair. "Thank you."

"If it will keep you stable," she replies. "It is my duty as your caretaker."

That almost makes me smile.

Door swishes. "Mia?"

I lift my hand in the air, shaky as it is and a few moments later someone grasps it out of the air and lowers it, but doesn't let go.

"Are you alright?" Definitely Ralin.

"I'm alive. Atton is breathing. Everything is right with the world again." I reply.

"Is she on anything?" he asks the Handmaiden.

"She does not require pain medication, though there could be lasting effects from the healing process. Is this not how she usually speaks and behaves?" she asks.

He sighs. "No…clinging to Atton is fairly normal as things go."

I pick my head up and glare at Ralin. "This is the only time I've _ever_ clung to Atton."

"Technically but not metaphorically," he replies. Smiling a little. He's fucking with me.

"He's the first person I met on Peragus not counting the doctors and I've known him longest." I say, pouting.

"Yes, and you love him," Ralin replies. Gently.

I'm still a little shocked I was that obvious. Attraction sure, you could pick up on that. But he's assuming an awful lot. "Beg pardon?"

"It wasn't that difficult to figure out, Mia." He says, almost chidingly. "If you wanted it kept a secret, you should've been more-"

A groan from Atton silences all of us.

The Handmaiden walks over and reaches for the panel next to his cot.

"What are you doing?" Ralin asks.

"You don't need that anymore, I can explain things to him now that I'm awake," I follow with a moment after.

"He attacked us when we came upon your crash site," she replies. Hand hovering over the screen. "We attempted to tell him to disarm but he did not pause to listen."

"We just got shot down by murder bots, of course he didn't pause to listen," I reply. "He probably thought you were bounty hunters. We've crashed _twice_ now into bad situations, cut the guy some slack."

"How did you know about that?" Ralin is looking at me like I just swallowed a goat or something. "You were unconscious when we were confronted by the HK assassins."

"No, I remember. Something about self-destruct protocols…or something," I say. I can't totally remember what happened in the game, but that should help with my believability. I cannot _believe_ I just slipped. I must've really hit my head.

"I can't believe you were still conscious for any amount of time after the crash," he says. "Do you remember anything else?"

I shake my head.

"Do you believe he will still be dangerous?" Bri- Handmaiden asks Ralin. "If there is any doubt, I will have to put him back to sleep."

"Just put us in a cell, then it won't matter." I reply. "We'll be safely locked away and I'll have time to explain everything."

"He isn't going to like that…" Ralin says.

"He'll like being in a medical coma the whole time we're here even less," I reply.

The Handmaiden nods and hits a button on the bed.

And suddenly we're moving along on some kind of anti-grav hover device and I squeak a little.


	20. Chapter 20

"Ugh," Atton groans and rubs the back of his neck. "Did they  _have_ to knock me out?"

We're sitting side-by-side on that cot that Handmaiden wheeled into an actual room-cell instead of one of those tiny force cages. Only enough room for the cot, really, but it's roomier than it could've been.

"Apparently you attacked them, so it was knock you out or kill you," I reply.

"Oh good, I'm glad I didn't get the shit covered end of the stick this time," he says. Sighing and leaning back against the wall behind him. "And I'm glad not to be in a force cage so I can lean on things."

He does look good leaning on things. I have no idea why there's such a visceral punch of attraction in my guts when he leans on walls and shit, it just seems to happen?

Right now he's just kinda sitting against the wall, doesn't have the same effect- am I sure I'm not still high on something?

He glances over at me and notices the troubled look I've probably got on my face. "You in pain?"

"Not really. Achy, but…mostly fine," I reply. "Ralin's probably talking to whoever the boss is right now, or…well, they might be done by now. It's been hours."

"Speaking of which," he says slowly. "They put you in a kolto tank or something? Did you see anything?"

"I was unconscious after the assassin attack," I say, repeating my coverup lie. "I don't even remember much of that, so maybe it was just a blink. I don't think I was in a tank though. I didn't see one in there, either."

He hums and crosses his arms. "We need to get you to one."

"Why? I feel stable for now," I say. "It's probably just a matter of time."

He gives me a look, "time in which you'll be able to do…what? Lie around and wait for people to kill you on our incredibly dangerous trip around the galaxy, with a Jedi?"

Has a point, I guess… "Oh yeah. Guess we should find somewhere we can hide for a few days and get us all tended to. Bao-Dur's probably in need of some maintenance, I heard he was knocked out by the crash, too…"

"Ralin tell you about him?" he asks. Hands gripping the frame of the cot pretty hard. "About his problems with Czerka?"

"Valid problems," I reply.

"If you think they're so valid, why did you suggest Ralin work with them, anyway?" he asks. Turning on the cot to face me and give me his full attention.

"Simple," I reply. "Even if we  _could've_  chased them off of the station- they're a big corporation. They would've found a way to come back. And doing what the Ithorians wanted, like that lady in charge before said- would've eventually bankrupted the Republic and stopped all progress or they would've kept trying and made their economy even worse. Either way, bad for the common people like you and me."

He narrows his eyes at me. "So…how does this fix the problem exactly, if you hate Czerka and wanted them kicked off the station?"

I smile a little. "Oh come on, I know you're cleverer than you let on. Think about it for a second instead of pretending not to have a clue."

He frowns at me, but I see the gears turning behind his eyes. "I can't think of anything that would eventually allow you to destroy or boot Czerka."

"Then discount that possibility," I reply. "When we can't put out a fire, what do we do instead?"

He stares at me as he seems to put the final pieces together. "The contract…they signed…and the project they're on…and with the media watching them…they'll have to play nice or risk getting themselves kicked off the station. And they won't be able to do most of their illegal activity because they'll be under more scrutiny."

"Illegal activity is usually fine with me, so long as it's like. Stealing from the wealthy or killing murderers, etcetera, but giving guns to gang bosses so they can murder civilians?" I shrug. "I just can't stand that shit."

And still, he stares at me. This time like  _I'm_  the puzzle to figure out. "How…how do you do that?"

"Do what?" I ask.

"Be…basically…evil, but…do good things?" He struggles with that one.

"I'm not evil," I shrug. "I just use evil tactics in order to bring about a good result. If you play their game, you can win. Not always, but it does usually give you a better chance than stubbornly sticking to a bunch of principles that are useless to the people you're trying to help. I mean, there's obviously lines you don't cross, that's what separates you and them. But there aren't many of 'em. I mean…don't harm the innocent. Don't involve people that don't need to be involved and therefore put them in danger. Don't torture. Kill only those who haven't decided to change their ways."

"What, you mean redemption?" he asks. Kinda grumpily, actually. "Does that even really happen?"

"Rarely," I reply. "But like. Don't just let a guy live cause he's afraid you're about to kill him and is willing to promise anything. Those worthy of redemption will come to it on their own."

' _Like you did,_ ' I think to myself. ' _That Jedi might have opened your mind to the Force and let you feel life around you. But you're the one who chose to leave the Sith behind and stop doing what you were doing. And it could be undone, if you were to follow a darksider. It was always your choice._ '

Atton looks uncertain, but he doesn't ask any follow-up questions.

We spend a few awkward minutes together like that, before someone comes to get us. Atton obviously deep in thought, and me- hesitant to interrupt him but still bored as hell.

Ralin and Kreia both stand in the doorway.

"Well…it's time to go," Ralin says.

"Alright." Atton gets down off the cot and then turns to scoop me up before I can even attempt to stand. "First things first, we get to a med-center somewhere."

Ralin nods as Atton walks out of the doorway with me. "Agreed. How are you feeling, Mia?"

I'm blushing to the roots of my hair, but mostly fine, I guess. "Not really in pain…" I reply quietly.

"Curious," Kreia says. "I can feel the pain coming off you in waves, child."

"Well something's blocking it then, cause I stopped feeling it a while ago." I reply. "Maybe they gave me more drugs than they thought."

"All the more reason to quickly get to a physician, I think," Ralin says.

And we walk down the hallway, Kreia eyeballing me and Atton with the force as she follows behind us. And I know she's doing it, because I can feel Atton shaking a little. A shiver here and there. And I realize I kept them away from each other at that critical point in the story where Kreia's supposed to learn who Atton once was.

And I say a silent  _Hell Yes_  and resolve to not leave them alone  _ever_  from this point on. If I could change just one thing, the horrible mind-rape that Kreia dealt to Atton would be it. And worth everything else.

I lean up a little, and cup his jaw in my hand, kissing the side of his mouth. "Thanks for the ride."

He scoffs a little but his body is relaxing so I've given him something to focus on to block Kreia out, I hope. "Not a big deal."

"Mmmaybe," I drawl.

He glances down at me once but looks away when he sees the way I'm looking at him. And from the way he swallows hard after that, I'm thinking he knows exactly what I want to do with him right now.

' _Take_ _ **that**_ _you invasive ass. Read my mind and see only Atton. Read his mind and see only me. Be disgusted and turn away. Leave us_ _ **alone**_ _._ '


	21. Chapter 21

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys, I'm thinking I might take a break for a few weeks. Build up a backlog, take it easy for a bit and then come back when I'm ready. Won't be more than a few, maybe a month, I dunno. But I think I need to rest, relax and recharge my batteries.
> 
> I know you guys'll understand, so thanks in advance for being so patient! I hope to be back soon.

"No," I respond once again.

"Dantooine is the training ground of the Jedi-" Ralin begins.

"I know what Dantooine is," I halt him with an upraised hand. "But you haven't been there in years. There's only one settlement, called Khoonda, and they're still rebuilding. If they  _do_  have any kolto tanks, I'd take bets they're all occupied."

Ralin takes a deep breath and sighs. "Well. You've shot down Nar Shaddaa, Dantooine  _and_  Onderon. Which are all places we  _need_  to go, regardless."

"Not while I'm convalescing and we might get shot down again- it could kill me this time." I assert. "Let's find a small Hutt-aligned world, where everything is kinda neutral and just pay a doctor there to see me."

"I dunno," Atton is leaning in the doorway of the med-bay. "If there  _are_  Jedi on Dantooine, I mean…free healing."

I turn my head and give him a look. "You were antsy about being in a hive of Jedi before, has that suddenly changed?"

He scoffs, "no. But we're not exactly rolling in credits. If it means you're healed  _and_  we don't have to pay for it, I say we go. If there aren't any Jedi there, we leave and do  _your_  thing."

"Well, it's two against one," Ralin says. "Bao-Dur! Where do you think we should go next?"

He grunts something noncommittal from somewhere nearby.

Atton snorts, "still not talking to you, huh?"

Ralin sighs. "I believe wherever we go, he will want off this ship and away from me as soon as humanly possible."

I hum. "You know what? I'm hungry. We don't have to decide anything till we've had lunch. Do we have provisions on the ship?"

"Yeah," Atton instantly stands. "I'll go grab some."

"Ralin you go with him," I say.

They both stiffen and throw each other a glance.

I roll my eyes. "You're going to have to get along eventually. Doing one small chore in civility or silence is like, the  _least_  of you're gonna be expected to do together."

Ralin sighs and walks toward the doorway, passing by Atton who's still standing there looking sullen.

"Atton," I stand off the cot for a moment and reach for him.

He's catching my arms up in his hands before I can really move more than a step, "hey. Hey, you're not supposed to be out of bed, yet."

"Well, I need to talk to Bao-Dur. So either get him to come to me, or help me over to him," I say.

Huffing, he pushes me gently back toward the cot. "I'll get him, just…stay."

"Incentivize me," I reply.

He leans down closer to my face and lifts an eyebrow. "Four syllable word," he says.

"You know what I want," I reply.

Like a whip of lightning a grin stretches across his face before he kisses me, but it's there and gone before he pulls away. Pointing at me very authoritatively. "Stay."

"Staying," I say. And roll my eyes.

I'm still a little giddy over the fact that every time I reach out or ask for affection, he doesn't say no.

Doesn't mean anything, really. Atton was always starved for affection and intimacy, I'm just allowing him an outlet for that. I'm not going to expect anything and maybe later I'll have the opportunity to communicate that my only intention is to have fun, be with him and see where it goes. No commitments necessary.

I don't want to freak him out if he thinks I'm getting too close. He always seemed pretty leery of people liking him too much.

…but I also don't want to make him think I don't care about him which also has its own clusterfuck of terrible consequences.

Guess I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.

"Atton said you wanted to see me?" Bao-Dur appears in the doorway while wiping off his hands on a grease rag.

"You want to actually be angry at the right person or are you content with taking all your rage out on Ralin?" I ask.

He pauses in his movements and eyes me with trepidation. "What are you talking about?"

"Ralin was all set to help the Ithorians before I suggested a mutually beneficial alliance with a disgruntled Czerka employee," I explain. "He agreed to our terms, and we compromised on very few things. He didn't really care about anything but his own influence, so it was easy to manipulate him."

He's staring at me with a very flat expression, but something tells me that gears are turning in his mind.

"Did you manipulate the General, too?" He asks.

"Technically?" I reply. "Yeah. I mean, any argument or conversation that's had where you try to get someone to see your side  _is_  sorta manipulation. He did make the choice, ultimately on his own- but that was after all the costs and benefits were trotted out in front of him. How would you react if you were given the opportunity to not only help, but help sustainably?"

His eyes narrow, "if you knew the things Czerka has done…"

I flick my wrist and roll my eyes, "I get the gist. They're evil. But evil can't just be stomped out- it always comes back. That's why you've got to find ways to contain it, instead." Shrugging, I slouch down in my bed a bit. "Now go and talk to Ralin, this childish bullshit you've been pulling won't get you anywhere and it certainly won't help anyone else."

"Childish." he says. Dangerously quiet.

"Yes, childish," I reply. "You know, the whole, la la la~ I can't hear you~ routine?" I illustrate. "Talking out your problems is the adult thing to do. There are times when violence is necessary, but not before you get. All. The. Facts."

He looks incredibly angry, but in a very chill kind of way. "You may have a point. But that doesn't mean you can call me a child when I disagree with you."

"Your viewpoint is valid, that's not what's childish." I reply in a deadpan. "Your behavior in the pursuit of that viewpoint and its principles is what was childish. Oh, and before I forget." I sigh. "Kreia? Try to avoid her. She's…sort of sithy. She might decide to play around with your mind just for funsies. I've already caught her trying to do it to Atton once or twice."

She tried when we got onto the Ebon Hawke, and I distracted him again. He seemed pretty damn enthused to have some kind of shield against her probing.

Also probably just happy because he thinks he might get laid later, I dunno. It's not like I'd say no.

Bao-Dur glances down the hall toward the dormitory where Kreia's pretty much hogging all the space to herself. "The little old woman? She did seem strange."

"Yeah, that's one word for it." I grumble and scoot down lower in the bed. "Anyway. I just wanted to hash things out so shit wouldn't be awkward anymore. You have a problem with what happened on Telos, then your problem is with me, not Ralin."

"I understand," he says. Pauses a moment, and then turns and leaves.

Guess that fixes that? Maybe? Ah who gives a shit, I'm hungry and cranky and I want to curl in a ball and sleep for ten hours. Curled  _around_  Atton, preferably.

_Sigh_. Guess I'm still recovering. The pain is starting to come back now, and Ralin is baffled by how long the pain meds stayed in my system.

Considering I've never had whatever sci-fi shit they gave me before in my life, it's really not that weird. I just told him I hadn't been injured that badly before and only needed pain meds like, once or twice in my life so I guess I had no tolerance.

He accepted that pretty easily.

Atton didn't.


	22. Atton POV

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I'm BAAA-aaack.
> 
> I've got a few weeks backlog for Unwritten and that means I'll have a headstart on some other stories so I'll again be updating every weekend!
> 
> My hands and wrists still hurt a bit if i write for too long or something but I have mostly recovered from my issues, I think. It'll take time and I'll take it slow.

Mia was pretty dead-set against going anywhere aligned with the Republic. Also anywhere she thought the Sith might be hanging around, but…she seemed more worried about the Republic planets.

I mean, makes sense, I guess. There's more law and order on Republic planets, it's harder to get away with anything.

Dunno what made me suggest Alderaan, but the way her face  _lit up_  like it was the perfect answer, I just…

Never thought I'd be bringing a girl home, no matter what the circumstances- and she doesn't know this is home for me.

Or at least I don't think she knows. Sometimes she looks at me and it's like…she knows me. Better than I think she does.

But she isn't a force user, Ralin and Kreia both said they didn't feel the force in her.

In fact, Kreia got weirdly quiet when I asked and said she had  _none_  of the Force in her. Like…a spot of dead space. She said if she couldn't feel the life coming off of her, she'd assume she were a droid. She's not even force-blind technically- the old Crone says it goes further than that.

So she can't be reading my mind, which is a relief. Having to keep my guard up around the two force users already on board is bad enough. If I had to do it while just hanging out with the girl I sometimes…

Well, I don't know what to call what we do, really. We haven't had sex, not in the…traditional sense. But we've pretty much done everything else. And every time she reaches for me, I don't care that we can only kiss for a moment before we've gotta break apart because the ship is too small or people are around-

I just like that I got to kiss her at all.

And that's-

Weird. It's weird.

It's like, as soon as she showed up on that damn station, everything about her was…I don't know.  _Designed_  to make me like her.

She's good inside, but it's not a naive kind of goodness. It's the kind of goodness…I always wanted, back before-

Well, after Revan, before Revan became Sith. At that point, I forgot all about being 'good' and just focused on being 'alive' and…angry.

Lockpicking and hacking are two things she's not really very good at, but she's got a real passion to learn them so she picks things up fast. She knows how to get people on her side, get them twisted around her finger- but it's…

It's usually for their own good, so that's. Not even half as evil as it should be.

Weird, again, because…I don't think I've ever caught her doing it to me.

Maybe she thinks sex can control me and that's why she's…why she acts like she can't resist me. But it always feels so  _real_ , I just…

"Yes, yes, they are here…now about the reward we discussed…" I stop still in the hallway outside one of the offices.

That's the voice of the doctor that was working on Mia earlier.

" _Declaration: You shall have your reward if we return and find that they have not left yet. Otherwise, your reward will be a blaster bolt to the face, Organic._ " The killer droids!

I step close to the door and wait as the holo is turned off and the doctor comes for the door- as it slides open-

Well, it doesn't really take much to kill someone. People do it by accident all the time.

They're all so…fragile. It used to make me feel powerful, now it's…I just feel the life winking out of him as I close the doors behind me and I don't know  _how_  to feel, really. It's almost like it's too easy, and I don't like  _that_  at all.

It takes a few minutes but I'm able to nail down the location the call was sent and use the computer to order a whole damn shipment of medical supplies to be delivered to the Ebon Hawk.

We've got hours before the droids show up, but we should be gone by then. For now, we won't have to stop anywhere to treat our wounds if we have a fully stocked med-bay.

I hesitate…then order a small Kolto Tank, fit for one person to be installed in the Cargo Bay.

It'll eat up all our time here, but as long as we're gone a few minutes before the droids show up…we should be good, right?

"Doctor I was-" Ralin walks in at the exact wrong moment.

But luckily he recognizes something is going on and shuts the door before moving the Doctor out of sight and hissing at me. "What did you do!?"

"He called the Murder-bots on us," I reply while clicking through the patient records.

He was going to administer sedatives to Mia to keep her unconscious and keep us here, but I nix that order and exchange it for a secondary consult- citing personal business and typing in that the doctor is too busy to handle her case right now.

"So you killed him," he says. Sounding  _incredulous,_  of all things.

"Says here he was going to dose Mia to keep us here, keep her under sedation…not even any orders to treat her wounds, really." I say distractedly. "Plus, killing him and filling up his calendar for the day is a lot less messy than tying him up and waiting for him to be found and just…taking off. I know how to handle these situations, we're just…waiting for another two hours."

"When will the Droids get here?" he asks.

"Two and a  _half_  hours?" I say. "Look, we need the medical equipment they'll install on the ship in the time it takes for the Droids to get here. Mia is…fragile, right now. And even if she gets treatment, what happens the next time something dangerous comes up? We land on a planet we're not sure is safe while being hunted by kill-bots that don't care about anyone else who might get in their way?"

"...I know you only said that last part because you think you can get me to agree if you use civilians against me," he says. But slow and contemplatively. "But you still make a good point."

I was actually thinking that Mia probably wouldn't like it. After evacuating Peragus and everything…she was so hellbent on making sure everyone got out alive…

When did I start caring whether she approved of anything I do? How do I make that stop?

"What else are you doing?" he comes around the desk to stare over my shoulder.

"Juggling around his appointments so no one comes looking for him for the next three hours," I reply. "Also…Mia mentioned we should get our Transponder card changed and maybe grab a shuttle for the ship…just in case we need it."

The Transponder, I get…but why get a shuttle? What does she think we'll need it for?

"You think the Hospital will just have a transponder lying around?" he asks.

"They've got ships here for pickups and dropoffs," I reply. "If we can find one that we can switch Transponders with…well, it'd be obvious pretty fast that they're not driving the Ebon Hawk."

"They might get shot out of the sky first, Atton." Ralin crosses his arms. "Stealing a Transponder is one thing but-"

The door chimes. Ralin actually thought to lock it, that's good.

When I bring up the security footage, Bao-Dur is standing there waiting to be let in. "Do we tell him what's up or…?"

Ralin sighs. "He already thinks I'm evil, why not?"


End file.
